We need to settle a new design for Promotions. The closest thing we have is the following suggestions from Ahriman:

Some promotions ideas:
Combat 1-5
Drill 1-5
Medic 1-3
March
Intercept 1-2.
Evasion 1-2.
City attack 1-3
City defense 1-3
Flanking 1-3
Sentry 1, 2.
Suspensor disruptors 1. +20% vs suspensor units.
Suspensor disruptors 2. +20% vs suspensor units
Improved shields 1 +20% vs guardsmen units.
Improved shields 2 +20% vs guardsmen units
Armor-piercing rounds 1. +20% vs vehicles.
Armor-piercing rounds 2. +20% vs vehicles.
Anti-aircraft rockets 1. +20% vs thopters, +20% vs hornets.
Anti-aircraft rockets 2. +20% vs thopters, +20% vs hornets.
Desert warfare 1. +20% desert waste, deep desert, dunes strength. Requires sandrider promotion OR thopter class OR suspensor unit promotion.
Desert warfare 2. +20% desert waste, deep desert, dunes strength.
Guerilla 1. +20% hills strength, +20% peak strength.
Guerilla 2. +20% hills strength, +20% peak strength, double moves in hills.

So this thread is to prompt some discussion and get us to a new design.

There are a small number of special purpose promotions such as Home Ground, Mercenary, Sandrider, etc which we need to keep anyway.

Also, one key point of the promotion design is which unitcombats can achieve which promotions, and what are the AND/OR prerequisites for the promotion.

Add to the list the current espionage ones.
Add extended range 1 and 2 (aircraft range), and collateral damage 1 and 2.
Add accuracy 1 and 2.
Add shock 1 and 2.

Dependencies (obviously each sequential promotion requires the preceding one):

Medic 1 (requires combat 1 or drill 1)
March (requires combat 3)
Suspensor disruptors 1. (requires combat 1 or drill 1)
Improved shields 1 (requires combat 1 or drill 1)
Armor-piercing rounds 1. (requires combat 1 or drill 1)
Anti-aircraft rockets 1. (requires combat 1 or drill 1)
Desert warfare 1. Requires sandrider promotion OR thopter class OR suspensor unit promotion.
Other promotions have no requirements.


Guardsmen access:

Combat 1-5
Drill 1-5
Medic 1-3
March
Intercept 1-2.
City defense 1-3
Suspensor disruptors 1. +20% vs suspensor units.
Suspensor disruptors 2. +20% vs suspensor units
Improved shields 1 +20% vs guardsmen units.
Improved shields 2 +20% vs guardsmen units
Shock 1 +20% vs melee units
Shock 2 +20% vs melee units
Armor-piercing rounds 1. +20% vs vehicles.
Armor-piercing rounds 2. +20% vs vehicles.
Anti-aircraft rockets 1. +20% vs thopters, +20% vs hornets.
Anti-aircraft rockets 2. +20% vs thopters, +20% vs hornets.
Guerilla 1. +20% hills strength, +20% peak strength.
Guerilla 2. +20% hills strength, +20% peak strength, double moves in hills.


Melee:

Combat 1-5
Medic 1-3
March
City attack 1-3
Flanking 1-3
Improved shields 1 +20% vs guardsmen units.
Improved shields 2 +20% vs guardsmen units
Shock 1 +20% vs melee units
Shock 2 +20% vs melee units
Desert warfare 1. +20% desert waste, deep desert, dunes strength. Requires sandrider promotion OR thopter class OR suspensor unit promotion.
Desert warfare 2. +20% desert waste, deep desert, dunes strength.
Guerilla 1. +20% hills strength, +20% peak strength.
Guerilla 2. +20% hills strength, +20% peak strength, double moves in hills.


Vehicle

Combat 1-5
Drill 1-5
Flanking 1-3

Suspensor disruptors 1. +20% vs suspensor units.
Suspensor disruptors 2. +20% vs suspensor units
Improved shields 1 +20% vs guardsmen units.
Improved shields 2 +20% vs guardsmen units
Armor-piercing rounds 1. +20% vs vehicles.
Armor-piercing rounds 2. +20% vs vehicles.
Anti-aircraft rockets 1. +20% vs thopters, +20% vs hornets.
Anti-aircraft rockets 2. +20% vs thopters, +20% vs hornets.


Thopter:

Combat 1-5
Flanking 1-3
Sentry 1, 2.
Improved shields 1 +20% vs guardsmen units.
Improved shields 2 +20% vs guardsmen units
Armor-piercing rounds 1. +20% vs vehicles.
Armor-piercing rounds 2. +20% vs vehicles.
Anti-aircraft rockets 1. +20% vs thopters, +20% vs hornets.
Anti-aircraft rockets 2. +20% vs thopters, +20% vs hornets.
Desert warfare 1. +20% desert waste, deep desert, dunes strength. Requires sandrider promotion OR thopter class OR suspensor unit promotion.
Desert warfare 2. +20% desert waste, deep desert, dunes strength.


hornet

Combat 1-5
Intercept 1-2.
Evasion 1-2.
Improved shields 1 +20% vs guardsmen units.
Improved shields 2 +20% vs guardsmen units
Anti-aircraft rockets 1. +20% vs thopters, +20% vs hornets.
Anti-aircraft rockets 2. +20% vs thopters, +20% vs hornets.
Add extended range 1 and 2 (aircraft mission range)



siege class

Drill 1-5
City attack 1-3
City defense 1-3
Accuracy 1-2
collateral damage 1 and 2.


suspensor class

Combat 1-5
Flanking 1-3
Sentry 1, 2.
Suspensor disruptors 1. +20% vs suspensor units.
Suspensor disruptors 2. +20% vs suspensor units
Improved shields 1 +20% vs guardsmen units.
Improved shields 2 +20% vs guardsmen units
Armor-piercing rounds 1. +20% vs vehicles.
Armor-piercing rounds 2. +20% vs vehicles.
Anti-aircraft rockets 1. +20% vs thopters, +20% vs hornets.
Anti-aircraft rockets 2. +20% vs thopters, +20% vs hornets.
Desert warfare 1. +20% desert waste, deep desert, dunes strength. Requires sandrider promotion OR thopter class OR suspensor unit promotion.
Desert warfare 2. +20% desert waste, deep desert, dunes strength.

I will try to throw this together today.

Current promotions not in your list, I will delete: Formation, Charge, Blitz, Guerilla III, Barrage III, Mobility, Navigation I,II, Ace.

Current promotions not in your list, I will keep anyway: Leader, Leadership, Tactics, Morale - all related to Great General

There are a couple of promotions from version 1.0 which never got renamed; this only matters to XML coders, but I will also internally rename Woodsman I and Amphibious to Stillsuit and Thumper.

Current promotions not in your list, I will delete: Formation, Charge, Blitz, Guerilla III, Barrage III, Mobility, Navigation I,II, Ace.

I'd add blitz and mobility, vehicles should get blitz, suspensors and thopters should get mobility.
My design wasn't meant to exclude anything not on the list, it was just to throw out some ideas.

I was going to come back and bump this thread to complain that nobody had given me feedback on the new promotion implementation yet. To my surprise, it seems I never posted it. That would explain the lack of feedback.

Please unzip this on top of 1.5. It does not modify any of the same files as deliverator's various art patches, so it should co-exist. However, because there are 6-7 different sets of files, I suppose it is possible some conflict will appear.

If this seems OK, then we can turn Lord Tirian loose to make some buttons for it. I have not added any buttons, but I did spend a few minutes to pick the most suitable icons for each. You will notice some of the icons are not really very suitable, and in most cases there is a I-II progression which just reuse the same icon. These art problems can be left for later, but I'd like feedback on the game play.

A conversation about promotions came up on the screenshot thread:
there are 3 types of units that aviable early at game, and they different progression of defence capabilities , strengt and time.

Soldiers are warriors, infantry are archers, quads and thopters are basically chariot/horsearchers, bladesmen are basically swordsmen/axemen.

Nope, Our Archers can get Vanilla melee promotions, While our warriors can get CG.
Its different. Just my feedback from gameplay. Perhaps changing defence bonus and unit cost will change AI defence issues + AI rush weakness.

It sounds like we should slightly change which promotions are available to which unitcombats. What do you suggest? The original design is above.

I dislike closing off the range of promotions. I see no reason why guardsmen shouldn't be able to get shock (bayonets, melee weapons, etc.), or improved shields (ranged units can still have shield-belts) or other similar type promotions.

If a soldier rush is too powerful, increase soldier city defence bonus up to 50%. I don't think we need to mess with the promotions by taking away options.

I think best solution is

1. what Ahriman proposing but in lower amount lets say 40% (to have difference with infantry)

2. is to making all Vs UnitCombat Class promotions aviable after certain early tech.
That means all promotions like:
improved shields
suspensor disruptors
etc
should be unlocked by some tier 3 military tech (really early) (Counter Tactics?)

I think that a new tech needed in order to unlock promotions would be a very boring tech. If you really think that this is such an early game problem, then you could shift the promotions to defense tactics, but honestly I think its just because you're playing a very very aggressive strategy on small maps with aggressive trait leaders. This can work in vanilla, too.

This could potentially also be fixed once we have tech flavors working, so that AIs understood that defense tactics was a military tech, and potentially prioritized it more.

Agree , defencive tactics is good tech for it, which also will give isntant infantries to ai.
Such warrior rushes should not be that powerfull on immortal. Even with 20 tiles gap i can take 1 of 2 cities from agressive, and take all cities from non aggressive.

About my tactics - that is the tactic i using in BTS on high difficulty levels (emperror/immortal) (Gilgamesh/Sury/Joao/Pacal/Agressive leaders), and no way my warrior rushes can be such effective. Cmon those are even not UUs, and in BTS immortal game i can allow to myself to do that only with quechuas.
Normal rushes are axe rushes or chariot rushes, but warrior rushes on immortal and total anihilation with just tier 1 simple unit? Thats not right. And promotion tree is different in DW, so it need some "delaying".
And to get to axes i need to play well through early stage, and overcome its challenges, and overcoming challenges - that is the blood of the game.

This also will give another bonus - protecting AI on such early stage will add more challenge to game, because when AI have all improvements and all worker techs and all establiesh he is less dumb. And then it can be more challenging to overcome.

And i will repeat - Long lasting challenge - long lasting player's love to the game/mod.

Just a short add-on: The Stillsuit promotion should require the tech of the same name, IMO.

The Stillsuit promotion should require the tech of the same name

Stillsuit promotion probably needs a rethink; I don't think extra movement is really what we want here.

As was suggested elsewhere, it should maybe become a desert combat strength bonus, and have the promotion require stillsuit tech and sandrider promotion, so that only desert-capable infantry can get it.

My point was just that having a promotion of that name not requiring the equivalent tech seems the worst solution :p

Stillsuits should probably increase heal rate or something. you could even have it generate a small ammount of water for the nearest city when killed. desert combat bonus and requiring sandrider promotion would mean only Fremen can get the promotion? that seems wierd. i know Fremen had the best stillsuits but other civs still used them.

i think perhaps fremen should get 'Fremen Stillsuit' promotion with an additional benefit over the normal 'Stillsuit' promotion.

The idea would be that the Stillsuits promotion (or we could rename it Fremen Stillsuits) would represent superior quality suits and general tactics and know-how.

We don't need both Stillsuits and Fremen Stillsuits promotions.

I don't think faster heal-rate would be appropriate (it doesn't help your wounded recover - and if anything Fremen care less about their wounded), and I don't think that stillsuits increase the amount of water that you can render from deathstills.

Desert Warfare I,II give a combat bonus on desert. As Ahriman has pointed out, these should also probably have sandrider as a prereq, since most infantry cannot walk on desert. So, if stillsuit gives a combat bonus on desert, isn't it redundant?

Desert Warfare I,II give a combat bonus on desert. As Ahriman has pointed out, these should also probably have sandrider as a prereq, since most infantry cannot walk on desert. So, if stillsuit gives a combat bonus on desert, isn't it redundant?

Not quite. The point is to distinguish between the desert combat promotion available to thopters and suspensors (desert warfare), and the desert combat promotion available to melee/guardsmen.

At the moment, in order to make desert warfare available to Fremen melee units, it must be a promotion that melee units can select. In order for it to be available to thopters and suspensors, it can't have a pre-requisite promotion like sandrider.
These two together mean that the desert warfare promotion is also available to non-Fremen melee units, who can never use it because they can't fight in deserts. And the AI sometimes selects the desert warfare promotion for them anyway.

So the point of having stillsuits and desert warfare both do the same thing is to get around this problem; desert warfare can be made unavailable to melee, and stillsuits can be made to require the sandrider promotion.
That way, thopters and suspensors can get a promotion, and desert-capable infantry can get the promotion, but non-desert capable infantry cannot get the promotion.
Which is the design goal.

random idea:

is it possible to limit the distance that melee units can travel into desert squares? for example melee units can't be more than 5 squares from soild rock?

if this is possible, we could allow stillsuits to remove this limit on top of desert combat, which would give such units a pretty decent advantage in mobility and exploration.

is it possible to limit the distance that melee units can travel into desert squares?

This could be pretty confusing to human players in figuring out why they can or can't enter particular squares. Dont' we already have something where you can't enter deep desert tiles until stillsuits tech? It comes so early that you don't really notice.
Adding this restriction to Fremen units might not be a bad idea.

is it possible to limit the distance that melee units can travel into desert squares? for example melee units can't be more than 5 squares from soild rock?

I don't think we can make three types of terrain, including "deep" desert and "really deep" desert. But, we could do more with desert waste (coast), like vanilla galleys. Today most units get desert waste and deep desert movement at the same time. We could make some units or techs able to move onto desert waste; those units might get deep desert movement much later, or maybe never. What do you think?

I guess that an appropriate effect for a Stillsuit might be to reduce unit maintenance, but that is probably not a very exciting promotion, and/or might be too powerful economy-wise.

I like this idea alot. Actually if any melee unit somehow aquire stillsuit (which is quite possible, espessially for Atreides/BG melee units (lore wise), and anyone at all (game wise, its a game, and Harkonnen found Mahdi sometimes too) , it should be able to , at least, peek into a desert.

But, we could do more with desert waste (coast), like vanilla galleys. Today most units get desert waste and deep desert movement at the same time. We could make some units or techs able to move onto desert waste; those units might get deep desert movement much later, or maybe never. What do you think?

This sounds plausible.
We would have to think about how this would interact with expansion across islands in the early game, and Fremen expansion and (potential) new AI in particular.
Supposing we got Fremen to be able to use sandrider settlers well, we might kill Fremen again by making their settlers unable to cross deep desert.

My worry is that a lot of the time you could start on an island that was separated from all other islands by a narrow strip of deep desert, and so that faction woudl be choked off in terms of expansion. This could also limit access to the polar area.

But as a potential implementation:
Thopters and suspensors, at game start, can only enter desert waste tiles (and polar desert wastse).
Thopters and suspensors gain the ability to enter deep desert with the dune topography tech.

Sandrider promtion allows Fremen units to enter desert waste tiles (and polar desert waste), either from game start or with the Stillsuit tech.
Sandrider units can enter deep desert only with the renamed Riding the Worm tech (which is now "desert ways", or something?).

And potentially if this was too restrictive, we could change the mapscripts so that desert waste spread out 2 tiles from land, rather than 1 tile. So travel between islands would be blocked if there was a 5 tile gap between them, rather than a 3 tile gap.

I guess that an appropriate effect for a Stillsuit might be to reduce unit maintenance
Interestnig, but I think unit maintenance is already probably not important enough.

Supposing we got Fremen to be able to use sandrider settlers well, we might kill Fremen again by making their settlers unable to cross deep desert.

Any change we make with this would improve non-Fremen desert movement, without changing Fremen desert movement.

But as a potential implementation:
Thopters and suspensors, at game start, can only enter desert waste tiles (and polar desert wastse).
Thopters and suspensors gain the ability to enter deep desert with the dune topography tech.

If we prevent thopters from moving into deep desert until midgame, then we do have to worry more about isolated islands. My thought was that the stillsuit promotion would enable infantry, only, to move into desert waste / polar waste, only. So it is adding some mobility, not taking any away.

The only implementation problem with adding desert waste movement to infantry is that desert waste is internally "ocean", which means any unit to move onto desert waste needs to be an "all terrain" unit. We have not tested all the different combinations of unitai and all terrain; it is not really clear how well the existing units would use this capability. We can try it, and see if the AI uses it well.

Any change we make with this would improve non-Fremen desert movement, without changing Fremen desert movement.

Are you suggesting that non-Fremen ground units should be entering desert tiles? I thought you were very very opposed to that. It could mess up the transport AI too.

Moving thopter/suspensors to needing a tech to cross deep desert without doing the same for Fremen would just mean that human-controlled Fremen and fixed-AI fremen would have easy first access to the polar region (which is blocked by deep desert).
So that't probably not a great idea.

Also, there used to be an issue (still is?) where units blocked from deep desert could still enter it if on a spice resource.

My thought was that the stillsuit promotion would enable infantry, only, to move into desert waste / polar waste, only. So it is adding some mobility, not taking any away.
I suggested this a while ago (within cultural borders at least), you hated it :-)
I'm not sure which of us are right anymore.

We can try it, and see if the AI uses it well

We can, but my guess is it would not. Probably internal testing of this would be wise, its too major to include in a public release without testing.

So what you're proposing is:
Sandrider units can enter desert waste tiles and deep desert tiles from game start.
Suspensors and thotpers can enter desert waste tiles and deep desert tiles from game start.
Non sandrider suspensors and thopters can enter desert waste tiles after stillsuit tech, and can never enter deep desert.

So what you're proposing is:
Sandrider units can enter desert waste tiles and deep desert tiles from game start.
Suspensors and thotpers can enter desert waste tiles and deep desert tiles from game start.
Non sandrider suspensors and thopters can enter desert waste tiles after stillsuit tech, and can never enter deep desert.

Yes, that is correct. This recent sub-thread was started by PL, and I was trying to find some alternative approach which would be possible to implement. Now we can discuss whether this is a good idea and how important it is to try, compared to other possible projects. I would prefer to wait a little while before making this type of change.

Non sandrider suspensors and thopters can enter desert waste tiles after stillsuit tech, and can never enter deep desert.
Now we can discuss whether this is a good idea

Pros:
Fremen guardsmen would be able to cross desert waste without neednig sandrider or transports.
Places higher value on Stillsuits tech.
Arguably more "logical" (why can't infantry walk into deserts?).
Makes worms more interesting if there are more things for them to eat.
Makes desert warfare a potentially valuable promotion for normal infantry units.
Improves infantry movement rates by foot.

Potential issues:
AI may not recognize that its units can enter desert waste tiles. Or it may not see enemy units in desert waste tiles as a threat (are they a different AI domain?): potentially you could walk an infantry stack up to an enemy city, saying in desert waste tiles, without them being able to attack you. Certainly they wouldn't be able to attack your infantry stack with vehicles (who couldn't enter desert).
The AI tends to move its units in stacks, and can get badly confused or behave suboptimally if some units in the stack can't enter tiles that other units in the stack can enter. An AI stack of infantry with even a single siege unit or vehicle could get confused and stick to land.
Also this means that the human (who knows how to separate their units) could gain more than the AI.
Humans will also potentially gain an exploit if they understand that their settlers can cross desert waste, while the AI doesn't and must move them in transports.

If the AI issues are solved:
Thopter raiding is no longer possible (start 1 tile offshore, move, pillage, move back to safety of desert waste tile), which significantly reduces the utility of thopters.
Suspensor/thopter stacks brining amphibious invasions are much more vulnerable; if they stop one-tile offshore, they can be assaulted by land units before unloading, potnetially destroying the transports and their cargo.
Fremen desert access is less unique.