[Freeciv-Dev] Re: Non-Mobile Units and Coastal Bombardement

["Ross W. Wetmore" <rwetmore@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

At 08:45 PM 02/12/13 -0500, Cameron Morland wrote:
>Hi,
>
>I've had an idea in my mind for a while and I'd like to see what people
think.
>
>For one thing, I would like to have units which can exist at a tile,
potentially attack adjacent tiles, but not move from the tile (without
assistance). I'm thinking of things like large cannons, which cannot be
moved at a reasonable speed without a cart. So a bunch of cannons could be
set up in the field, using a single "ox-cart" (ground transport unit), and
they could attack any advancing enemies. (I suppose they should really be
captured and not destroyed if overrun; what do you think?)

I think the current rulesets allow you to create units with movement "0".
There is no reason one cannot load these on transports. Thus this capability
already exists. Capturing is an interesting extension. But it should always
have a percentage chance of success with current unit destruction on a 
successful attack the norm.

>The second thing I want is to make it possible to attack off-shore boats.
If an ironclad is bombarding my coast, a phalanx, no matter how well
defended, really shouldn't be able to harm it. But a cannon mounted on the
shore should be able to bombard the ship. That's where the idea of national
coasts extending 3 miles out to shore came from; the range of early cannons
was limited to 3 miles:

The problem with this is that sea tiles extend far more than "3-miles" from
the coast. Thus unless the unit comes in to attack, the shore batteries can
never reach it. In an attack, the possibility of destruction currently 
exists. Thus adding a shore defender attack option and taking away the
combat damage from an unsuccessful sea attack is both redundant and backwards.

Note, combat results include generic effects of battle, and not necessarily
something that depends on one unit or the other, or even that the battle
is fought in some limited preconceived fashion. These might be ...
1)  Ship runs into reefs and sandbars as it comes into shore attack range.
2)  Ship is swept on shore and overrun by the defenders due to currents and
    winds - in this case the phalanx is far superior to the cannon.
3)  Ship blows itself out of the water when its cannon misfires.
4)  Shore raiding party is completely wiped out by defenders - again the
    phalanx is a superior defender.
5)  Defenders successfully send fire-rafts or spiked log "mines" out 
    against the ship.
6)  One brave swimmer makes it onboard and chucks a torch into the 
    magazine.
  ... and so on.

Thus your phalanx argument is not really pertinent as it is a *very* limited
and unbalanced view of what is going on.

[...]
>I think the way to implement these is to add a coastal bombardment flag,
which permits a unit to attack water units. The first half can be
implemented as another flag, which forbids moving but permits a unit to
attack as many times as it has movement points (if a unit should be unable
to attack as well as unable to move, it can just be NonMil).

The only way this makes sense is if it is an extremely low probability
attack with miniscule damage effects.

A better way is to implement a combat system in which some form of 
initiative or surprise computation changes whether you use attack 
or defense values in the battle odds. Thus cannon would use their
(high) attack odds when they have initiative and their (low) defence
odds when the (original) attacker has it. They would not be able to
start a battle against a sea unit sailing by. One might modify this
for "straits" where there is are land tiles bracketting the sea, or
some sort of means to force the ships near land.

>I'm not sure it's clear why I want these flags. Anyway, I'm interested in
your comments, I will be away for about 3 weeks starting Thursday, and will
probably implement this while away.
>Attachment Converted: "c:\program files\eudora\attach\[Freeciv-Dev]
Non-Mobile Units "

Cheers,
RossW
=====