Units

So far I'm liking this game, but I think that if the amount of unit types was increased it would make the game that much better. Heres my thoughts:

1. Make an air-superiority fighter....for removing bombers/air transports (give it strong attack vs air and medium/weak attack vs ground targets.

2. Heavy Infantry (a.k.a. machine gun units): Same as infantry except more expensive, +2 to defense in cities, and +1 to attack (even outside of cities).

3. Aircraft Carriers: Give them a 25 unit storage, and 5 air superiority fighters stock (extra fighters will take up unit storage). Allow them to carry tanks, and other units as well. Also give the carrier the attack + defense of the aircraft its carrying X 1.25...this way it can't be easily sunk by a single sub (while at the same time not making it too hard to sink if its not adequately defended).

4. Anti-Tank Infantry: Same stats as normal infantry except a passive bonus of 1.5X to attack damage vs tanks. (also slightly more expensive)

5. Heavy Tanks: Very expensive, but with 1.25X the attack power and 1.5X the defense of normal tanks. (effective counter for anti-tank infantry)

We decided to keep the core units simple and unique in their functions. Most of the ones you proposed are duplicates. We might add 1-2 units to the core group later.

Still, do not despair! We have plans for dozens of fun, rare units, as well as possibly country/continent/strategy-specific units.

Will these come threw upgrades or available to everyone?

Kirjutas Mathon, 13.12.2010 at 00:03

Will these come threw upgrades or available to everyone?

Most likely they will be available without the need to unlock anything.

I think a cool unit would be anti-air units not exactly sure in what style since we haven got into missles yet

Anti-air would be real nice. Something is needed to battle the instant air rush. Don't know what. But disabling air the first 1-2 turns would make the instant air rush a bit more difficult. Maybe just allow one load or unload per turn for transports.

It's probably a bit of work, but I'd like to see something like stealth anti-air units that cannot move that basically form air defense lines within your territory. The intent is to reduce effectiveness of the air transport invasions. I like air transports, but don't think it should be so easy to fly over an oppoenent's territory an into the capital without clearing out a line of cities.

Let me get this straight. you would like a single stealth unit that can destroy air units when they fly in range? what woul prevent one from setting them up in your enemys territory, there by creting a map where only ground units are pratical?

I want them to be immobile, so you can't set them up anywhere unless it is your city. Additionally, I think they should have 0, or near 0 ground defense meaning if there is nothing else in the city, a militia or even a transport could take it out

Sorry for a bit of a nerco post...

But I was thinking with the addition of having more units, have like a certain limit of units you select in lobby pre-game that you want to use for the game. Example, you have 10 slots 'open' for units and you select all your units you want to be used in game (marines, planes, boats, etc). This will allow you to expand on the more units and less clutter in the windows when selecting units in countries.

Kirjutas xAbelx, 08.01.2011 at 00:30

Sorry for a bit of a nerco post...

But I was thinking with the addition of having more units, have like a certain limit of units you select in lobby pre-game that you want to use for the game. Example, you have 10 slots 'open' for units and you select all your units you want to be used in game (marines, planes, boats, etc). This will allow you to expand on the more units and less clutter in the windows when selecting units in countries.

Not a bad idea, we'll think about it

I think thats a great idea.

I support the idea of a fighter plane.

I would also like different tanks, or an upgrade to tanks. Most upgrades make tanks worse, there´s none that make tanks stronger iirc.

There already is a fighter plane in the game, though it is named bomber :D

there already are a different upgrades (and downgrades) for tanks, though they are named strategies :D

I suggest a rock paper scissors system, it would certainly make the game less like stack-of-death's

Currently the amount of units decide if you can win or not. (Of course, the amount of power they add matter too.)



Having a rock paper and scissors system would give every unit a weakness and a strength

example:

Tank
200% damage against infantry.

Infantry
200% damage against Anti-Tank Infantry

Anti-Tank Infantry
200% damage against tanks.



As you can see, this would double their power if they fight against a unit they are strong against. This would still keep the units simple and give hte players more strategy to what to use. Even as a tank general you might consider adding some infantry to counter your weakness. even though your infantry isn't as strong.

If you want to make it even bigger, units can be divided in Attack and Defence. So tanks would be classified as Attack, giving them a small increase in attack. While Armored vehicles could be classified as defence. (Similar to a tank but excels in defence.)

Also, you can ass more strengths and weaknesses. As you might know, tanks can't really shoot aircraft out of the sky, so they should have a decrease of damage against them.

To further strategize the game by giving you more bonusses with a [b]strategy[, a tank general could possibly arm your tanks with Anti-aircraft missiles, which basically makes you a bit stronger against aircraft. Also these tanks would have fortified armor, giving them less damage from anti-tank infantry and such.

As you might know, these extra suggestions make the simple rock, paper scissors idea just a tad more complicated. But I think if you a bit of realism in the game and good counter units fro people to use against their enemies, the game would be more interesting, while still have the same action.



Would be funny to see a stack of 200 tanks, me as an infantry commander make a mix of anti-tank infantry and normal infantry to counter-attack the 200 stack, with a mere 140 units. Ha-haa! The strong tank general has lost all of his tanks because he did not protect the weaknesses of his tanks!

What you suggest is already implemented to some degree, but emphasizing it too much will lead to a lot of frustration and misunderstanding among players (but I had a huge strong army! why did he beat me?!).

Also that would make it just too easy. Especially in the beginning those units would over power eachother, in particular if someone starts with a higher income and builds a great counter to the three people around him and demolishes them because they only built 10 tanks and he had 3 anti-tanks for all of them. Its a little overpowered. As it is for me now I see my marines take out plenty of tanks sometimes with 2:1 odds.

On the topic of new units, I have a few suggestions.

First of all is a form of APC, Armored Personnel Carrier. Although I think less of the armored, and more of the carrier. The game lacks a land troop transport, and air transport is expensive. APCs make slow units like militia, rather more useful.
I think maybe a mix of this and some form of light armored vehicle. Maybe a Humvee....

A form of artillery would be useful, I would suggest it being naval as this would create more focus on naval battles, which seem lacking. Artillery would be a unit where it has a attack radius, in which it can attack without being attacked, but some form of balancing, e.g the unit cannot move and shoot on the same turn.

Helicopters could enter the game, as a high attack, very low defense unit. Maybe with the addition of small troop transport abilities. This unit would be effective at clearing out units ahead of the line, but making it different from bombers should be considered.

Mobile radar, some form of vulnerable troop, with high stealth detection. Not sure what else to say about this.

Since it's a small idea, I'll sneak it in. Units could have defense mode, where they will attack units that come within a certain radius, just cause fighting multiple fronts when you only have two minutes is rather hard. This could be it's own unit.

Kirjutas RandomRabbit, 04.02.2011 at 17:56

On the topic of new units, I have a few suggestions.

First of all is a form of APC, Armored Personnel Carrier. Although I think less of the armored, and more of the carrier. The game lacks a land troop transport, and air transport is expensive. APCs make slow units like militia, rather more useful.
I think maybe a mix of this and some form of light armored vehicle. Maybe a Humvee....

A form of artillery would be useful, I would suggest it being naval as this would create more focus on naval battles, which seem lacking. Artillery would be a unit where it has a attack radius, in which it can attack without being attacked, but some form of balancing, e.g the unit cannot move and shoot on the same turn.

Helicopters could enter the game, as a high attack, very low defense unit. Maybe with the addition of small troop transport abilities. This unit would be effective at clearing out units ahead of the line, but making it different from bombers should be considered.

Mobile radar, some form of vulnerable troop, with high stealth detection. Not sure what else to say about this.

Since it's a small idea, I'll sneak it in. Units could have defense mode, where they will attack units that come within a certain radius, just cause fighting multiple fronts when you only have two minutes is rather hard. This could be it's own unit.

APC sound like they would just take up space, you have upgrades and strats later that increase movement range and such, so that'd just be overpowered. It does take a long time to move units IRL, also airtrans may be expensive but it stops them from being overly strong.

As for artillery I posted something about that already, giving it to battleships and maybe reducing their defense to balance them out.

Helicopters are kind of pointless; we already have a high attack low defense air unit, the bombers, both of them.

We have mobile stealth detection, have you bothered unlocking sentry planes?

Defensive mode? No thanks, it sounds like you want a unit thats like land artilery, IE; morters and the like, and that would just be a mess to code and to defend against, and balancing it would be pretty hard too. If time is the problem ask the host to raise the time limit.

Tsiteeri:

as possibly country/continent/strategy-specific units.

I'd throw my hat behind that idea, since right now as upgrades/strategies are universal a richer area like China or Western Europe are playing the same field as much poorer areas. I usually like to play in the Middle East or Africa from a aesthetic/personal choice, but I always end up feeling like the silly little mascot of the team rather than an actual contributor to an alliance bloc. It'd be neat to see stuff like technicals, insurgents/'hill folk' (Afghans or Yemeni and such), religious fighters, and so on.

This might go against the spirit of Afterwind, but maybe those poorer areas can have enlarged recruitment pools when it comes to infantry but smaller pools when it comes to tanks/air? Where Sudan or South africa has a cap of +2 if they are recruiting a footsoldier, but a cap of -2 if they are recruiting a tank and so on.


A random idea would be some sort of invisible unit that you can send to sabotage and harass an enemy city. They can't seize the city, but if they aren't discovered they lower the income of the city or negate your recruitment options for X week(s).

I'd like to see some humvees or warthogs or something light that can take 3-10 infantry or marines as fast as a air trans.

1. troop transporters: (only guerillia warfare) with a stack of maybe 5 . /weak attack (2) // basic defence (4-5) costs 250
2. aircraft carrier: "mobile aircraft creater" - for ca 20% higher costs (loads max. 20 bombers) - attack(3) / defence (8) costs: ca 4000
3. "Destroyer" ships: (only Navelstra.) good vs subs, weak vs battleships and carriers, with a medium range of stealth detection


->btw fix imperial strategy, its underpowered...

I really can not see the point of aircraft carriers, but people do seem to really want them.

Prehaps they could produce aircraft in small numbers but... yeah that idea is a bit funkey.

Kirjutas King Cow, 14.02.2011 at 06:22

I really can not see the point of aircraft carriers, but people do seem to really want them.

Prehaps they could produce aircraft in small numbers but... yeah that idea is a bit funkey.

Well, the problem is naval commander is pretty useless and underpowered, but if you give it aircraft carriers you can sail into one of the five ports that are open to the see and keep your battleships there and then with the town and aircraft carriers mass a few bombers and transports with units and fly further inland. Without battleships having a long range artillery function its something that would make naval commander a hell of a lot more viable.

Yea Aircraft carriers are not useful right now besause they have not implimented a supply line into the game. add a supply line and you will see the entire game chage dramasticly
for those of you who dont know about supplylines thats moveing supplys from one place to the other the rout you move through is called your Supply line
EX. i get my cigs from the corner store my supply line is the road i drive on between my house and the store. Now if my enemy put soldiers on that road i would not goto the store or i would get shot
in game this means moveing things to countrys that are hostile make it more expensive or take longer. i dont know how you could impliment this but without it as was said AC are not usefull because planes have unlimeted fuel and have no need to be moved and we all know boats move slower then plains so there would be no bonus there.

as was said though there is a lack of def. units in the game. Haveing non movable defensive units would be cool

I have been thinking and think the game might be more interesting with "Faction" units

2 idea's about what factions might be:

#1: Simply a different set of units. This means that for example an American FAction would call Infantry "Infantry", while a Russian Faction might call them the Russian name for infantry. This is just to give people a different feeling.

#2: A different set of units (Note, you will still have the name kind of units, except different pictures / names) with different prices and/or attack/defense. A Faction would be your main picking to change units while a strategy will say what you will generally use with a faction.


3 idea's about getting different factions:

#1: You buy a "Faction" to use. You simply spend SP to buy them.


#2: The country you start in classifies the "faction". As American you will have an american faction and as russian a russian faction. (American = Blue pictures with soldiers / tanks and Russian = red pictures with soldiers / tanks etc.)


#3: The strategy you use classifies the "faction". Every faction has different kind of units. Blitzkrieg would have german names, Imperialism would have European names etc.



I just really think this may increase the fun / replayability in the game, even if it just changes pictures / names of units. Put behind the name in brackets what it is.

Soldier(Infantry)
Jet Fighter (Bomber)
T80 (Tank)

etc.

Since I have another suggestion I will also post it in here.

As the current idea is to add more rare units, I think it might also be more interesting to change some to standard units.

For example Heavy Tanks, I would love to make these. There Attack would be high and their defense slightly higher than normal tanks (Medium Tanks). However the downside of a Heavy tank would be the movement range and price.

There would also be light tanks, There attack is slightly lower and defense too. However their movement range is better with just 1. Also their price is quite cheap too.

Medium tanks would be the same as now.



I think it would just be nicer if there were more standard units to make but not too much of course.

However with this way the different classes of units needs good advantages and disadvantages or they will not look differently.

One other idea would be that these higher end units unlock the longer the game takes. Of course you would only be able to make them after the income of a city reaches 100% again or something.




As last this might be implemented together with factions. That would mena that every faction has 1-2 units it cannot make and 1 unit it can only make and no other faction can.

Now I have been thinking the same thing but I have a different Way to look at. What is the strategy had 2 different Units that that strategy Could use. For example tank general Could use The heavy and light Tanks. MoS could use the recon sub and the 10/1 stealth unit . This is an idea I love how the game is right now But I just wanted to add to this conversation.

To be honest, just about all of the new units would fall under roles already covered by current units. Artillery with high attack and low defense are just tanks; heavy infantry with high defense are just infantry, anti-tank units that have attack or defend bonuses against tanks are just tanks/infantry, depending on who is attacking (although with tanks' awful defense, even attacking infantry do just fine against them).

The only new unit I think the game could use are fighters, and a big change to bombers, but this is mainly since bombers seem slightly overpowered. The way the game is right now, bombers are an ideal attack and defense unit, making it too easy to take a city and hold it against a counter-attack the next turn. Making bombers substantially worse defenders would mean you'd see less attacks of 30 bombers and 1 air transport with 3 infantry, but rather balanced attack forces with bombers there for the initial strike, and then initial troops to defend the captured target.
This is where fighters come in; the other use for bombers is to protect transports en route. Adding fighters with high defense and low attack would fill this niche, again without having just 1 all-purpose air unit that can be spammed and abused.
I should stress that this is a pretty minor complaint; yes massive swarms of bombers are a huge pain, but they can be stopped with the current system and they are far from a perfect strategy. However, splitting the roll of bombers and fighters/interceptors would make for a more balanced and more realistic game (because when it comes down to it, the idea that carpet-bombing the area around your city to defend it is kind of silly)

Hey, is there any possibility of allowing a biological warfare unit?

Explained here:
http://afterwind.com/forum/topic.php?topic_id=779