Civilization 4's Unit Workshop

[Kuciwalker]

There's a problem there: IIRC, even muskets rendered personal armor useless (the amount of armor you'd have to wear to stop it would render you virtually immobile). So either move muskets to the industrial era, or think up something else.

[MxM]

Originally posted by cyclotron7
In response to MxM

Let's face it, if we totally remove all time it takes to do things and just look at the end results, we don't need a unit workshop. You could easily sit down and list every last unit combination I've put down, make each one of those a unit, and be done with it: no unit workshop.

But costs aren't 0. In my pitifully short list, there are 7 pre-gunpowder weapons, and 4 such armors. Assuming each unit has a choice of one weapon and one armor (including the possibility of no armor), that's 35 combinations. Note that 35 is just the number of foot based, pre-gunpowder units.

The unit workshop appeals to those people who want a much greater variety of units without the need for a massively long list. By letting the player make quick selections on a screen and then use those templates, a player could conceivably manage hundreds of different unit combinations very quickly, drastically reducing the time it takes to build a unit.

I haven't decided whether I need the extra variety or not. I used to argue against unit workshops when we were having these same discussions about Civ3. However, I never miss a chance to help think things up, as this discussion over Civ3 is what orginally brought me here. I'll reserve judgement on whether the system is valuable or not for when I see a good and balanced model.

It just looks that here is 35 units, but probably only half of those is usefull, and at any particular point in time it is even much less. All you do is modifying attack and defense values, and at any point in CIV time you want to produce 3 types of foot units: 1) best attack, 2) best defense, and may be 3) best overall. May be, just may be you will have a unit with best attack, and average defense.

Let me describe the game play with this workshop: You get new armor - you go to workshop, and increase armor of the best defense and best overall unit. You get better weapon - you do the same but with best attack and best overall unit. Is it fun? Nope. Starting with the middle of the game your workshop will contain a lot of old units, because you still have them on the field, and micromanagement will became tedious.

The problem is related with simplistic attack/defense system. Brian Reighnolts (sp?) understood this when he was creating AC. This is why he created different type of weapons and armors (photonics, lasers, etc.). This is why workshop was a bit useful in AC.

Thus, in my opinion, the combat system should be modified in CIV , before workshop would make any sense at all. There should be multiple types of armor and multiple type of weapon. However it is difficult to show graphically and probably difficult to make it to be intuitive and natural. Also for me the CIV game should not be about battle, but about state development and diplomacy. Wars are too similar and repetitive, contains a lot of micromanagement. Each time when there is a chance of war, I am thinking: do I want to do this again? In short, the simpler and easier war system, the better. No different types of armor and weapon, no eye painful looking at the units for type of armor (hmm… blue armor, is it good against swords or pikes?), no workshop.

[FrostyBoy]

You're forgetting one thing

You can't just simply upgrade whenever you want to

You have to be able to supply the resources (material, costs and maybe other things too?) to upgrade or build new units.

If you want to build the best possible unit, then you are going to have to sacrifice, money, time and material resources.

Got to remember, don't add the UW on top of Civ3, the UW has to connect with other new features of Civ4. And this ties in with what I was saying a while ago in the Civ4 List, If you have a good idea, Firaxis has to somehow take these ideas and connect them with each other.

[Cyclotron]

Originally posted by skywalker
There's a problem there: IIRC, even muskets rendered personal armor useless (the amount of armor you'd have to wear to stop it would render you virtually immobile). So either move muskets to the industrial era, or think up something else.

Muskets can be made armor piercing easily, that's fine. I always thought of muskets in game as something less than flintlocks, mostly because the Civ3 musketman has a stand for his musket, which IIRC was only for harquebuses (sp?) and other pre-flintlock guns that were much heavier; since he's around not too long after knights, I interpreted it as a very old, probably matchlock gun. Of course, the system can be tweaked if you don't agree.

[Urban Ranger]

Do you people love to reinvent the wheel?

[Kuciwalker]

What do you think?

[Urban Ranger]

It seems that way by looking through this thread

[ThePlagueRat]

Hmm, this is getting a bit like SMAC? Well, I must say I like that!
Civ4 could just use the SMAC engine, just playing it on earth.

[ThePlagueRat]

Originally posted by skywalker
There's a problem there: IIRC, even muskets rendered personal armor useless (the amount of armor you'd have to wear to stop it would render you virtually immobile). So either move muskets to the industrial era, or think up something else.

Your avatar (it's great!) reminded me of the contrary...

[Kuciwalker]

[GePap]

A "unit" workshop for a ci game needs to be less focused on each weapon type and shield size and whatever, and more with history and strategic plans and so forth- it could also be great to mnipulate civ differences with.

Let say you have a very limited number of basic types:
Defensive inf. offensive inf. range inf. heavy cav. light cav., range cav. heavy siege. light siege, vehicle, light ship, medium ship, heavy ship (and so forth)

Then have tech levels (stone, bronze, copper, iron, steel, gunpowder, combustion)

Then have unit abilities- highly trained, police action, whatever

And finally civ bonuses (like saying-all mongol cav. in the following tech agaes gain +1 movement)

This type of more simplyfied unit workshop wpuld be simple enough for beginners to use, adds some level of different war styles to civs becuase players would seek to use civ bonuses, so a Mongol plaeyr might concentrate on light mobile hordes of cav while romans concentrate on infantry (siulates RoN system a bit)

[DarkCloud]

A "unit" workshop for a ci game needs to be less focused on each weapon type and shield size and whatever, and more with history and strategic plans and so forth- it could also be great to mnipulate civ differences with.

Hmm.. that brings up another idea- could the Unit Workshop model Tactics... for example, one of the main differneces between the Roman Legion and other armies in its day was more due to the organization and tactics than the general equipment (although of course rich rome had better equip, but it was generally the same overall)

and the Phalanx was likewise more a defensive formation than any particular weapon.

[civilleader]

Unit workshops would help when everybody is in the same age but you need a way to have a better military with the same techs as everyone else. Sort like how both USA, Iraq were in the modern age same techs, but USA creamed Iraq with superior weapons armor, since they had more money. Also heavier armor should affect movement points.

[Kuciwalker]

Actually, the same effect could be achieved through unit trading. Iraq would be late Industrial Era (or even earlier) and have bought its weapons from Russia (which actually happened).

[Q Classic]

although i don't really like the idea of a unit workshop in civ4, i'm not adamantly opposed to it. however, i think that to be truly able to design units, that should be a capability to be discovered and allowed later. why?

in the past, you didn't have many choices for weapons. you have a sword, and a horse. any genius would put two and two together.

now, in the modern era, you could conceivably have a fast-moving tank unit designed primarily for scouting... or you could have one designed mainly to punch holes, slow moving.

[Kuciwalker]

I think a scout unit wouldn't really work in civ.

[Q Classic]

even better with the unit workshop. when everybody has tanks, you'd still be able to construct elite units armed with spears and shields designed to take out tanks.

[POTUS]

Why not?
In Vietnam, they had spears, dipped in feces and urine, and stuck in the ground. Someone steps on it, the have a nasty infection and can't walk. Then, they'd have to have him medevaced out, or be carried. Having the soldier medevaced forces a helicopter to land, great target. If they carry him, they'd go slower, and the VC would be able to ambush the US soldiers more.

[Jamski]

Well, like SMAC, every unit would have to be able to stick flags on.

Examples :

Basic Tactical Training : +25% attack and defence
Battlefield Mastery : +50% A and D
Mobile Warfare : Ignores terrain penalties
Armour piercing weapons : 1/2s opponents armour rating.
Defensive training : +1 attack, canceled by
Offensive training : +1 defence
Special forces : invisble
Improvisers : gives bonuses when out-teched seriously??
Scouting : Sees further
Diciplined : Retreats when reduced to one hp

Of course they could go on for ever adding more "specials" each unit could have 1, and after a certain tech, units could have 2.

Also - like SMAC has its reactor sizes = hit points, Civ 4 should have unit sizes = hit points.

Group 3 hp
Company 6 hp
Regiment 9 hp
Army 12 hp

You would need the tech for each one.

-Jam

[ThePlagueRat]

Great idea!

- more flags...

Support unit: yes/no
if yes: will not be able to attack alone, but gives great bonuses to others types. e.g arty supports infantry.

Has a ZOC: yes/no.
if yes: can counterattack or block,
if no: can ignore enemy ZOC.

In supply: yes/no.
if yes: can heal on next turn and attacks normal, if no: will not heal or it can get reduced attack efficiency.

[ThePlagueRat]

And here is the SMAC-inspired idea we came up with in other threads. I guess it belongs here:


Unique Item!
To make a Unique Unit you should have the structures to
create certain items for the unit, like a smith, and resources like iron, and a tech with the Unique Item, then you can make for instance a uniqe Roman Shield (while others would get a lesser Iron Armor) to put on your phalanx to make them a Legion, then add spears. If you want to make them more offensive just add another weapon if you got one. Then you would create your own version, making them even more Unique. Then you can save that config for later...

I like better the idea of a structure and resources to get the items (both within trade network), instead of just requiring a tech, in which you had to get in SMAC, e.g. from Synthmetal to Plasma armor you just needed techs.


Other Item ideas:

Korean Rockets: addon to inf.unit, gives an ranged bonus.

Viking Longboat hull: addon to ships, better speed and defence.

Mongol Heavy weapons: addon to cav.unit, attack bonus.

US Marines: addon inf. unit, better bonus to amphibious attack.
(then others have others marine addons, with normal bonus to amphibious attacks. )

German Volkswagen: addon to inf.unit, makes them move faster as a motorized inf.

We need more Unique Item ideas, come on...

[rendelnep]

how about...... THE SWISS ARMY KNIFE

[ThePlagueRat]

Ah! ...addon for the mac.gyver spy unit, increases sabotage chances?

[rendelnep]

maybe but it could also be used to create a mini fort in forests that has 30% of the defence of normal ones andd offers no protection against mobile warfare (not strong enough) and offers camoflage or something.. i don't know.
Probably only useful for regiments or lower

[Kuciwalker]

[ThePlagueRat]

Mini forts, eh? aha, that would be for the girl-scout unit...

[rendelnep]

look YOU wanted other ideas. You never mentioned how realistic you wanted them to be

[Zero]

I dunno if this has been said...

I dont like the idea of weapon beinf att stat and shield being defensive stat. It wasnt like that in SMAC and it would be silly seeing broze shielded warrior defeating iron sword wielding warriors in combat. (what is the shielded warrior gonna do? bash him to death? )

Rather, weapon and shield should be combined into one stat, and stat of that item should provide both att/def stat.

I'd like to have it this way...

Build a human (base unit) with varying discipline (conscript, vet, eliete etc)
have these slot of improvement

-Armament
-training/skill/ability1
-training/skill/ability2
-vehicle/animal/ship/etc

Civ3 wise
If you wanna build an infantry, you build a human with armament of infantry weapon. If you wanna build a paratrooper, you can add this equipment into skill ability.

You can ban certain skills to have armament to prevent building a pikemen that has ability to settle for example. And maybe ability such as these takes up 2 slot of skill so that you cant add both settle and paradroping etc. You can also ban vehicle, but i would like to see settler on wheels horses.. it would be interesting.

Like Plaguerat said... maybe specific has UU-esque armaments... or they can have UU-esque abilities in my scenario. For example. Mayans can build units with capture ability only.... And certain civ can have much cheaper cost on unit improvement as their special trait... etc.

[rendelnep]

Perhaps we'll see the Roman Legion - Armoured Calvary Division
(but in latin)

[yellowdaddy]

I've always thout it would be nice to modify vehicles and see how they behave differently.

to illustrate, i'll use one particular fantasy - imagining i am the Polynesian civilisation on a small collection of islands in a large ocean.

I have the disadvantage of lack of resources, but the advantage of more time to develop without encountering other civs.

My main vehicle is going to be the boat.

I might specialise in this, and use my workshop to make my boats longer and thinner so they are faster than other civs boats, but can't turn as well.

I might also use my workshop to build multi hull vessels, and even floating/mobile settlements/bases for military or economic uses.

This is the kind of thing i could imagine using a more developed version of the AC workshop for.

I think in short, AC has a lot more to offer than Civ3.

Civ4 should be the merger of the best bits of SMAC and Civ3.

I think the game would be far better with those lovely rolling maps, and without those memory-squandering 3d heads.

I think the battles in Civ4 should be completely overhauled - do away with the incessantly dissatisfying square on square action, and zoom into a simple battlemap with dots and simple monocolour units to have a real tactical struggle.

(I'm thinking of the battle computer in Deuteros, combined with the amusing North and South battle sequences).

I'm not so keen on Ethnically unique units - I think you should be able to switch them off - the problem being, what if you want to edit the names to be a Civilisation of your own choice? (either historical or made up).
The other thing is, they aren't really entirely fair even if you have to survive to get to some of them! - the USA with its fighter jets, whilst most other Civs get ephemerally useful replacements for bronze age units.
(this is connected to the old "post iron age civ in a pre-iron age world" issue).

I wonder also, if you could use your workshop at a more advance state of civilisation (where patent laws exist) to sell arms to countries (your own brand), so you have an advantage when facing weapons you've designed yourself?

And another thought, I'd quite like to be able to structure my forces as I'd like, naming Regiments, and and organising command hierarchies - so I could decide whether to give orders to a platoon, Reginment, Brigade, Corps or Army (squadron or Fleet) - it could make some conflicts easier to manage - rather than clicking on each unit at a time, instruct a whole brigade or fleet to move. In fact, a little strategic/tactical designer could be good for issuing a whole battle or war strategy to your forces?

I remeber a game called Imperium, which had loads of characters you could assign as managers: governers, generals etc.. each with their own stats - i think Civ could benefit from this, especially for when your civ gets big - i "enjoy" micromanagement and detail, but I also like to switch it off from time to time.