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Post by Oliveriver on May 5, 2017 19:02:11 GMT
Since I want to generate some interesting discussion, I'm going back to a topic I found interesting long ago on the old forum: NickTheNick's outline of the Squad Editor, which is used in the later stages to design army units. The original thread is here, although I've copied the OP to the Wiki to save people having to set foot in the ad-riddled world of Canadaboards. I know my personal favourite concept is the possibility to use organisms which have evolved on your planet as war machines, such as being used to draw chariots or carry artillery. What do you think is interesting about this idea? What do you think of it as a whole?
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Post by crodnu on May 5, 2017 19:29:03 GMT
We could have crazy things like hive-mind drones plugged with dinamite to explode in the middle of the battlefield, or air/sea warfare squads for birds/fish
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Post by ATP Kraken on May 5, 2017 23:18:19 GMT
Or people to recite literature on the battlefield, hoping to indoctrinate the enemy. wolooloo
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Post by crodnu on May 5, 2017 23:50:19 GMT
Or people to recite literature on the battlefield, hoping to indoctrinate the enemy. woloolooFrom the wikipedia entry on ants: "...Several ant species even use "propaganda pheromones" to confuse enemy ants and make them fight among themselves."Wolooloo can indeed be a thing in hive-minds.
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Post by mitobox on May 6, 2017 0:05:55 GMT
If squads are going to have an experience system, would there be a penalty for equipping them with weapons they're not used to (i.e. your swordsmen being given wooden clubs (completely different weapon types) would make them about as effective as raw recruits, but there would be less of a penalty for giving them large knives (not the same weapon, but same type, "slashing")? I know my personal favourite concept is the possibility to use organisms which have evolved on your planet as war machines, such as being used to draw chariots or carry artillery. What do you think is interesting about this idea? What do you think of it as a whole? If we can train large simians to throw barrels down at besieging forces, I'll be a happy camper.
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Post by ATP Kraken on May 6, 2017 0:25:17 GMT
I would prefer using large shelled beasts to throw hammers and jump on enemy troops, accompanied by sentient fungi death squads. But anyways, using animal or non-sentient robot troops should only allow a degree of complexity dictated by the intelligence of the species. For regular units, their order complexity should based on skill, but still outclasses all but the smartest of animals. A green human soldier should have more complexity than a veteran attack dog, but might see some competition from a trained dolphin.
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crabghast
Sentient
POSADAS👽 WAS ☢ RIGHT 🚀
Posts: 68
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Post by crabghast on May 9, 2017 19:27:01 GMT
Alright, serious game design time!
I have no objections to the concept, it sounds thought out enough and like it could work well in general. Just some minor notes:
1. If you are doing mounts, you should also allow for non-mounted "companion animals" that could also be armored and would fight on their own. Human analogues are war dogs, common in most cultures with domestic dogs and prevalent even now, except more trained and specialized.
2. Unarmed combat. How will it work? Human combat is almost entirely dependent on tools, but a species with powerful natural defenses could use them more extensively.
3. Slightly related, Mesoamerican civilizations wouldn't strive to kill their enemies as efficiently as possible but instead, they would try to leave them alive so they can be sacrificed later. Culture should have an effect on the AI (To stop you from being OP you could get "infamy" for breaking tradition).
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Post by mitobox on May 22, 2017 22:43:14 GMT
Thought I'd bring up something that I don't think's been mentioned here yet: doctors/field medics.
I'm assuming units will each have a health stat. I'm also assuming that their natural health regeneration won't be very fast, at least not to the point of reaching full health halfway through a lengthy march. This means that, when in-game armed conflicts start getting serious, you're going to need a way to make your guys heal faster. Otherwise, you'd have no time for professional armies (since their short life would not be worth the time investment), and the only option remaining would be to send waves of conscripts at your enemies.
Enter members of your species with the medical profession. The development wiki's article on Society Centers (basically, settlements) makes a quick mention of these on the topic of specialists; medical specialists increase the SC's health value by an amount, which can be improved by giving them access to better medical technology and equipment. I'm guessing these guys can do the same for Military Centers (catch-all term for forts and barracks), where the same rules apply.
Presumably, the early Society Stage (or even late Awakening) has medical specialists (basically, shamans) that use medicinal plants to keep your labor force from dying to infected boo-boos. War's not too sophisticated by this point, so if one of your raiders gets a bad arrow wound, you just send that guy (and maybe a few squad members with him) back to town for the shaman to treat him.
However, later on, your squads are going to be way too far away for this to work, especially since you can't just send back guys in the middle of a siege (read: sitting around waiting for the defenders to starve to death). Not to mention, again, you could lose your elite troops faster than you can train more. By now, having a healer that can actually follow squads around would be VERY helpful.
For all these reasons, being able to put medical specialists into squads would be an excellent feature to have. This includes having medical equipment be part of the squad editor.
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Post by crodnu on May 23, 2017 1:29:36 GMT
Battlefield medicina existed a thing since roman times, they even had a tool to remove sling projectiles. Here's a relevant link
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