posted 05-18-99 12:19 AM ET            

While the City menu in CivII was pretty good, arguably better than AC in fact (build queues aside - though they were crap too), there is much room for improvement. The 'collection of city states' feeling is a major part of this - Civ and AC had very little by way of means to link cities together.

1) Terraforming and Settlers
Terraforming should be done by actual citizens in the city, and from the city menu itself. So you don't keep having to change back and forth between them. Include "terraformers" in the worker options menu, and allow two or more to work the same square. This saves a lot of messing around with settlers and terraformers, and a simple "terraforming complete" message will alert the player to the need to change citizens over. In addition, adding a build queue for worker behaviour would help immensely -
terraform this bit, then go do the forest, then go back to work on the whales. While this doesn't eliminate micromanagement from the game, it makes it much faster for the player to coordinate.

Furthermore, citizens inside cities and the settler unit should have less of a distinction made between them. A 'build settlers' order will still be available, but does not yield a distinct unit. Instead, this order drains X minerals and fuel per turn as a set rate, as citizens prepare to move out of the city and into the country. These settlers have the normal civ abilities, such as terraforming and found city, but may return at any time to any established city to rejoin the workforce. As such, the are added to the citizen list at the top of the screen, and can be used to work a terrain square. They may then be removed at any time to perform settler duties, such as terraforming on a off city square, or founding a new city.

Like other 'normal' citizens, a settler unit outside the city may retreat to their home city if attacked within the city radius (as with a unit moving into a square being worked by a citizen - the tile is vacated, and the military unit moves into it as if the settler was not there. If caught outside of the city radius, the unit must defend itself.

[Note: to keep the unit type homogenous, so you don't have settlers of different types working in a city, NO settler unit may be equiped with any equipment - neither weapons or armour. Defense will still require a military unit to accompany it.]

All of this applies to the basic 'settler unit'. Later in the game, this unit will be upgraded, and non-citizen terraforming units will become available, such as engineers and terraformers.

posted 05-18-99 12:32 AM ET         

First, later on in the game it's a hassle in SMAC to turn Transcendi into Engineers. I'd like to se a "Set all future citizens to X duty" when you can no longer work the land, or even when you can.

posted 05-18-99 12:35 AM ET            

Wizard - as in CivII
Tax collector - as in CivII
Foreman - improves speed of terraforming
Settler - (as given above) a mobile citizen who cannot fill a specialist role.
Priest - one happy citizen, *2 for a temple in the city. *
Entertainer - as in CivII, **
Governor - a single citizen in each town is allowed to act as the government of that town, reducing corruption and improving efficincy, especially when given a courthouse.

* The Oracle then counts as a priest in each city - very easy to understand. The priest should also be distinct from the Cleric UNIT, a unconv. designed to convert small towns and units.
** is improved by banks, markets places, and some tech discoveries - especially after the discovery of music - a dead end tech that adds a further 50% to entertainers. Adds a further choice to happiness management - priests? Or entertainers?

The roll of citizens was underused in CivII, instead, when you wanted a funtion fulfilled, you had to build a structure. CivIII should link the people to the town much more than CivII did, making citizens the main source of benefits, and structures the key to maximising those benefits.

posted 05-18-99 10:09 PM ET            

Conversely, some units do not become available unit the requiste structure has been build. Advanced attacking units often require their own structures to be built before they can be turned out. This represents the necessary investment into training facilitys that must be made in each city to produce the more dangerous units.

For instance, archers require a barracks, as somewhere to train and make the necessary equipment required for their craft. Hoplite, on the other hand, were historically a conscriped force, and every man who could afford a spear and shield was required to have one. Hence no ongoing facilities would be required to produce hoplite.

As a general rule, cities should be able to build and maintain defensive units without requiring a special facility, while attacking units generally should need a facility (archers, legion, knights, crusaders, etc.)

Some more advanced units will probably require their own, unique barracks to train. Catapults and siege engines, for instance, both have special engineering requirements.

List of basic units and requirements

Infantry
Can be produced without facilities, up to Bronze weapons and armour

Horsemen
Requires stables, and can be equiped with up to bronze weapons and armour

Barracks
Produces iron spear, swords, bows, and receives upgrades when appropriate techs are discovered.

Stables
Required for horse mounted units

Siege Workshop
Builds catapult (artillery), siege engine (negates walls for units attacking from that square).

Examples of units:

Warrior
No facility, cannot receive armour

Hoplite
No facility, armed with bronze spear and armour

Horsemen
Requires Stables. Armed with bronze spear, no armour.

Archers
Requires Barracks. Has bow and can wears no armour

Legion
Requires Barracks. Carries Iron Broad sword and wears iron armour.

Knight
Requires Stables and Barracks. Has Iron Broad Sword and iron armour.

Weapon stats:
Spear: attack 1, +1 defend vs. horse
Long spear: attack 1, +2 vs. horse (attack & defend)
+1 for iron spear
+1 for steel sword

Short sword: attack 1
Broad sword: attack 1, +1 vs. infantry
+1 for iron sword
+1 for steel sword

Bow: attack 2
Long bow: attack 3
Cross bow: attack 3 (reduces armour by 2)
(requires ammunition)

Bronze Armour: Defend 1 (looks like hoplite)
Iron armour: Defend 2 (looks like chainmail)
Steel Armour: Defend 3 (looks like plate)