Inspired by this Ahriman's post in our 1st Suggestion game :



Oh, and part of why Fireflies are so awesome is that the intercept chance on wasps and such is just too small. The intercept chance for fighter aircraft should be like 70%, so you really have to send fighters in first before bombers.
Also, should suspensor destroyers and up have a small aircraft intercept chance?

How do people feel about hornet range? Too small and interception missions aren't good enough at defending. Too large and an airforce becomes too powerful, and the stacking limit in cities (an important balancing device) becomes unimportant.
Also: is it just me or can fighters get complete kills on units while bombers cannot; doesn't this seem weird?


making this thread.

There are 2 unit classes, which are air (one of them pseudo air though) but Air combat is thing that might be reviewed separately.

As my reply and thoughts: I think bit different. I think that units should be pre-vulnerable to bombers much more than to fighters. Fighters not speciualise on bombing, and to attack they need to do low piques , risking to being shot. Bombers fly hight, and drop bombs. Interceptors should have more range than Bombers, and i think current range is fine for them. Also i think that perhaps we can add more promotions like Ace, which reduce chance of air unit being intercepted. Also i think that our outpost graphic should be changed, and perhaps they should act as landing fields (i didnt tested this)
Also atm, i think, balance bit broken and Hornets being just negated by rocket troopers. I think that their intercept chance need sliiiight tune down.

We need to make deep insight into balance between air units and units that counter them. Atm i think Counter units are bit too powerfull.

Thanks for the feedback.

Also atm, i think, balance bit broken and Hornets being just negated by rocket troopers. I think that their intercept chance need sliiiight tune down.

Rocket trooper intercept chance is like 25%, its not that high. I think we should probably have ~70% intercept chance for intercept mission fighters, and 25% on aa troopers.

I have no problem with hornets (especially fighters!) risking being shot down if they try strafing a tile with missile troopers.

I think that units should be pre-vulnerable to bombers much more than to fighters. Fighters not speciualise on bombing, and to attack they need to do low piques

I don't understand what pre-vulnerable and piques mean.

Atm i think Counter units are bit too powerfull.
I disagree. I think aircraft are incredibly powerful when attacking units that don't have any AA defenses, doing high damage at zero risk, and they can move around your empire instantly to respond to threats.
I have no problem with them being very vulnerable when trying to attack stacks that *do* have good defenses.

Interceptors should have more range than Bombers

Historically, just the reverse was true. Bombers have always had longer ranges than fighter escorts. I think this is as it should be: at max range, fighters should have to intercept to block the bomber from attacking, they shouldn't just be able to go in and destroy the bomber while its on the ground.

I don't understand what pre-vulnerable and piques mean.





Sorry for my bad english...

Well, you see - bombers are bombing and for that they need not to be close to land, on low height, they just drop bomb. Interceptors and fighters opposite - to attack they need to get closer to target, lowering their height and becoming more asy target, so i htink more interception for not bombers is better.

Ok thanks, I understand you better now. I thought I was trying to capture some of this in different unit strengths for fighters vs bombers.
Eg: strength 8, +50% vs hornet fighter
Strength 10 bomber.

Maybe these differences need to be made larger?
Strength 6 fighter + 100% vs hornet, strength 10 bomber.

Also, does this even work? Are unitstrengths even used normally in aircraft interception combat, and aircraft vs AA ground unit?

Yes there is some type of combat, on interception , i dont sure how it works, but it affect things for sure, something with normal odds influence interception and chance that intercepted unit being shot down, and how much damage it recieve when being intercepted.

Related to this, we have a suggestion (AH115) on AA and AT troops:
The roles of the mongoose trooper and beesting trooper were somehow split; they were supposed to be combined AT and AA, not one for each. It was supposed to be a 4 tier upgrade path of AT/AA: rocket trooper->missile trooper->mongoose trooper->beesting trooper. All 4 rocket infantry should have intercept chance, anti-aircraft bonus and anti-tank bonus.

I am not sure I agree; I think AT and AA troops should be separate.

I am not sure I agree; I think AT and AA troops should be separate.

I don't think that AA and AT troops are interesting enough to separate. AT troops are at best semi-valuable in vanilla, mostly to those who do not have the resources for tanks and MechInf themselves.
And they're valuable because tanks are the best city assault troops and stack defenders because of their high strength, and because tanks constitute the mass of late-game ground forces.

In DuneWars, vehicles are NOT great city assault troops; melee remain the best city assault troops all game. So AT troops are of low value and are not likely to be built without an AA role too. Hence why I think it is more interesting for the roles to be merged.

Based on our Succession game I agree with you that Suspensor DDs should have interception chance, slight, but I think that troop interception should be lowered abit.

In DuneWars, vehicles are NOT great city assault troops; melee remain the best city assault troops all game. So AT troops are of low value and are not likely to be built without an AA role too. Hence why I think it is more interesting for the roles to be merged.

It seems in Dune Wars that you can get away without building any Scorpions at all, so Anti-Tank is not likely to be a priority. The Scorpions field superiority role is a very niche.

I don't have the game here: what *is* the current intercept chance on missile troopers? Let's get the stats.

As for roller/scorpions, maybe they should be buffed? Strength buff? Movement buff? Blitz added?
I guess their weakness is somewhat inherent, in that a mobile land-only field superiority unit isn't that valuable in a game that mostly involves suspensor/air transport and small islands.

I don't have the game here: what *is* the current intercept chance on missile troopers? Let's get the stats.

As for roller/scorpions, maybe they should be buffed? Strength buff? Movement buff? Blitz added?
I guess their weakness is somewhat inherent, in that a mobile land-only field superiority unit isn't that valuable in a game that mostly involves suspensor/air transport and small islands.

1 : Mevement is enough, 3 is pretty decent for quads
2 : Withdrawal chance and immunity to certain units, paper scissors stone relationship always working very well.
3 : i think they should be somewhat like they are now - Recon/horse units from FFH or mounted units from Vanilla - if we compare balance role. Slower one with defend ability and defence bonuses, faster ones with -city attack, hight movement and withdraw chance and no defence bonuses. First strikes for all. This is very delicate and important balance - unit class balance , and we should avoid unised , worthless units.

I don't think that AA and AT troops are interesting enough to separate ... In DuneWars, vehicles are NOT great city assault troops; melee remain the best city assault troops all game. So AT troops are of low value and are not likely to be built without an AA role too. Hence why I think it is more interesting for the roles to be merged.

Then let us remove the specific unit names "beesting" (vs hornet) and "mongoose" (vs scorpion) and keep the generic unit names "missile trooper" and "rocket trooper". Each of these units should have an interception chance and an anti-vehicle bonus; what values do you suggest?

Based on our Succession game I agree with you that Suspensor DDs should have interception chance, slight, but I think that troop interception should be lowered abit.

Why should suspensors have an intercept chance? This does not make sense to me.

Also in the succession thread it was pointed out that the missile troopers can intercept from within transports; this is a bug. A while back I went through and tried to find all the "canXXX" functions, such as canBuild for workers, and made them return false when the unit is loaded in a transport; I guess I missed one.

I think there should be some special suspensor platform/unit for air interception. (vs air)
Perhaps later in game,
so far i think its good if we'll look inside UnitClasses balance (inside their own trees) and between them.
Its very complicated system, and there should be Universal unit.
Best aim is "stone scissors paper" mechanics, i mentioned. (With some adjustments relying on UUs.

Each of these units should have an interception chance and an anti-vehicle bonus; what values do you suggest?

Well, its all dependent on their relative strengths to the units they're fighting against. I'll call them rocket trooper and missile trooper 1, 2, 3.

These need to be organized by tiers. I don't have the exact stats in front of me, so this is just from memory.

Eg:
Tier1:
Quad (5)
Thopter (5)
Hornet: NA
Rocket trooper, 4 with +50% vs hornet, thopter and vehicle, 15% intercept chance

Tier2:
Roller 11
Light scorpion, 14
Wasp hornet 8
Firefly hornet 10
Falcon thopter 8
Missile trooper1, strength 8 with +25% vs thopter, +50% vs vehicle, 25% intercept chance.

Then design missile trooper2 and missile trooper3 with sufficient bonuses such that they are weaker than lasgun units or melee units vs other infantry, but that they have higher strength than an equivalent tier vehicle or hornet that attacks them.

I'd guess that 20% or 25% is a good base intercept chance for most AA infantry. Intercept mission on fighters should be much higher, maybe 70%.

Also; we seem to be missing the "evasion" promotion series for aircraft, which reduces their chance of interception. Can we add that?
This would help reward higher xp on aircraft too.

Why should suspensors have an intercept chance? This does not make sense to me.
For gameplay reasons. Currently, it is very easy to destroy the AI's army by bombing their incomnig ampibious invasion stacks, which consist of suspensor units and transports.
This means that once you have aircraft, you become pretty much immune to amphibious invasion.
An intercept chance on suspensor destroyers/cruisers etc. (and maybe a bonus vs hornets) would help reduce this problem, by letting the escort units actually function effectively as escorts, and help the transports survive long enough to deliver their cargo.

Also in the succession thread it was pointed out that the missile troopers can intercept from within transports; this is a bug.
Cool, thanks for finding.
I'd be tempted to actually leave it and allow them to work (they're standing on the deck firing) were it not for the fact that you can't see the contents of transports when you mouseover.

I think there should be some special suspensor platform/unit for air interception. (vs air) Perhaps later in game,

I guess the problem is that once the enemy has bombers, your transports are at significant risk. Right now due to a bug, missile troopers can shoot. But when we fix this, there is no defensive, desert travel unit like the vanilla destroyer.

This seems pretty easy to add; shall we give it exactly the same value as the vanilla destroyer?

I guess the problem is that once the enemy has bombers, your transports are at significant risk
Precisely.

This seems pretty easy to add; shall we give it exactly the same value as the vanilla destroyer?

I would be tempted to add an intercept chance (15% or so, or whatever the chance is on a vanilla destroyer seems like a good starting place) to the existing suspensor destroyer/cruiser/etc. rather than creating a separate anti-aircraft suspensor. Their role is as an escort, defending vs thopters and hornetse.

I still think that having 1 special aircraft unit will be better, i cant see normal suspensor platform good vs aircraft

I still think that having 1 special aircraft unit will be better, i cant see normal suspensor platform good vs aircraft

Why not? How do you know what weapons are mounted on a suspensor platform? The suspensor escorts are good vs thopters, so clearly they has some kind of anti-aircraft weaponry. Shouldn't a weapon that is good vs thopters also be good vs hornets?
It seems to me that anti-thopter escort and anti-hornet escort aren't different enough roles to constitute two separate unit lines.
Every other unit that is good vs thopters is also good vs hornets.

Why not? How do you know what weapons are mounted on a suspensor platform? The suspensor escorts are good vs thopters, so clearly they has some kind of anti-aircraft weaponry. Shouldn't a weapon that is good vs thopters also be good vs hornets?
It seems to me that anti-thopter escort and anti-hornet escort aren't different enough roles to constitute two separate unit lines.
Every other unit that is good vs thopters is also good vs hornets.

Yes , but atm Thopter only viable counter to suspensor attack
So why need to deny any counter. There is always should be some counter to suspensor fleet. At least w/o bonuses, like it now. So thats why i want to preserve paper-scissor-stone relatioship, adding just special anti aircraft unit to suspensor line.

The counter to suspensors is... suspensors. Thopters are more generally useful than suspensors (higher movement on land, bonus vs melee). Suspensors get a bonus vs thopters, because otherwise you would never use suspensors; thopters would totally dominate them.

Suspensors are supposed to be escorts; thats their role. Thopters are more raider units; they can pillage (unlike suspensors) and are more effective vs land.

There should be no easy counter method of destroying incoming transports before they can land, in a game that is all about amphibious invasions. And they're still going to be pretty vulnerable to aircraft even with a 15-20% intercept chance.

As it is, suspensor units are pretty underpowered. Thopter units are almost as good at escort duties, but are much better at other roles. Plus, the techs that give you thopters give hornets too, whereas the techs that give you suspensors often dont' give much else.
I hardly ever bother to build suspensor units. Adding anti-air bonus onto the existing suspensors would make them more worth building, and make them actually perform in their role of escorts.

The thing i can not see is how suspensor craft can be powerfull against air units on rugged/mesa tiles (assuming they will be allowed on mesa tiles in future) - Its even cannot hide , and can not move freely. Being struck by the bomber its very dangerous for it and i dont see very high flying bomber being so vulnerabe to some semi-immobile suspensor ship.

Is it possible to tie bonuses of units vs units to tile they are in?
I agree that it will be beneficial to give to most of combat units being guards on desert tiles, but i fail to see logic of preservation of same powers on rocky terrain, on rocky terrain there will be too much of counter units for aircraft, and that will tune aircraft down to quite weak state. (which is not so powerfull at the moment, i'd say)

The thing i can not see is how suspensor craft can be powerfull against air units on rugged/mesa tiles

1) Fixed SAM sites can't hide or maneuver, but are still very effective anti-air weapons. Manueverability doesnt' really help vs aircraft that much, the key is whether or not you have weapons that are good at shooting down aircraft.
Missile troopers aren't manueverable either.

2) All of your arguments would equally apply against thopters as well as hornets. - but clearly suspensors need a bonus vs thopters. If they can shoot down thopters, why not hornets?

3) If we want to penalize suspensors in mesa and/or rugged then that's easy enough. But suspensors are already weak on land tiles because they have much lower strength than their on-land counterparts. Eg suspensor destroyer (strength 8) comes in an era of strength 10-12 land units. I don't think we should really worry about suspensors being good on land, the issue is that they need to be actually worth building, and they need to be able to effectively escort transports from aircraft.

The difference between thopters and hornets that thopters are more independent, bird like flying machine, which fly quite low. Dune Helicopters.
Hornets use other speeds, other heights and much more dependent on landing/refueling .
Also unit of thopter can be vieved as unit that always can land. In books thopter was thing that can land even on dune.
So there is quite big difference, and i see suspensors being more powerfull against thopters, but less against hi velocity hornet class, especially bombers which just fly hight and drop bombs.

With an intercept chance of 20% a suspensor would be a lot less effective against a hornet than a thopter - it will rarely destroy a hornet, unless it is already damaged. It would just stop 20% of the hornet attacks from succeeding, the other 80% would succeed. That is not very effective. But is is a lot better than nothing.

With an intercept chance of 20% a suspensor would be a lot less effective against a hornet than a thopter - it will rarely destroy a hornet, unless it is already damaged. It would just stop 20% of the hornet attacks from succeeding, the other 80% would succeed. That is not very effective. But is is a lot better than nothing.

Precisely; suspensor/transport stacks will still be vulnerable to aircraft with a slight intercept chance, just not as completely helpless as they are now.

Well, its all dependent on their relative strengths to the units they're fighting against. I'll call them rocket trooper and missile trooper 1, 2, 3. These need to be organized by tiers.

Here is what we have today.

Rocket trooper, tech tier 4, strength 4, cost 40, +50% vs vehicle, thopter; 50% intercept
Missile trooper, tech tier 8, strength 8, cost 90, +50% vs vehicle, thopter, hornet; 50% intercept; same unit/animation as rocket trooper
Mongoose, tech tier 14, strength 12, cost 150, +50% vs vehicle, one first strike
Bee Sting, tech tier 14, strength 16, cost 150, +50% vs vehicle, thopter, hornet; 50% intercept.

The original idea was that mongoose was the AT unit (predator of scorpions) and bee sting was the AA unit (predator of wasps).

The new idea is that AT and AA should be combined. So, we reduce 4 units into 3. We drop the least interesting name (bee sting), the least interesting anim (missile trooper), and the least interesting set of stats (mongoose). The result is:

Rocket trooper, tech tier 4, strength 4, cost 40, +50% vs vehicle, thopter; 50% intercept
Missile trooper, tech tier 8, strength 8, cost 90, +50% vs vehicle, thopter, hornet; 50% intercept
Mongoose, tech tier 14, strength 16, cost 150, +50% vs vehicle, thopter, hornet; 50% intercept.

Any further tweaks to these units?

Any further tweaks to these units?

I would say:
1) we have 4 tiers of most units. Is there not room in the techtree for both a strength 12 unit (~tier 11) and a strength 16 unit? The high end of the tech tree is generally a bit messed up.
2) How about we bring the intercept rates down to 30%? I agree with Slyvnn that 50% is probably too high, especially with the interception promotions.

There has been some discussion of the air units but no conclusion. In addition the cielago bomber is missing some missions. Let's try to clean this up. There are five bombing missions: defenses, buildings, factories, port, strategic. You can give yourself a dragonfly unit to see all five mission buttons. Keldath's original goal was to make the best missions only available to the later units, but then the units evolved, and it got kind of random.

Firefly: cost 140, range 6, strength 6; can bomb defenses, buildings, strategic
Dragonfly: cost 190, range 8, strength 18: can bomb all five
Cielago: cost 200, range 9, strength 22: can bomb buildings, factories, port

"Port" doesn't make sense in Dune Wars so I will remove it from dragonfly and cielago. Since the cielago is the strongest, I will add defenses and strategic to it. Then the only mission difference among the three will be firefly is missing factories, which seems random but OK.

For fighters, we have:
Wasp, cost 90, range 5, strength 8
Locust, cost 150, range 7, strength 12

Any other comments on cost, range, strength?

EDIT: Also, Atreides needs another UU, and Ahriman has suggested a hornet. Any suggestions on which unit it should replace, and the stats?

Keldath's original goal was to make the best missions only available to the later units

IMO the advantage of the Cielago should be a very high evasion chance (it very unlikely to be intercepted). Its advantage is as a stealth bomber, not extra missions.
I would be inclined to leave the defenses, buildings, factories, strategic missions on all three bombers, and have strength, range, damage and evasion be the variables across the units.
In practice, the only ones that really get used here are sometimes defenses, and normally just for damage, so restricting access to the missions doesn't really add much.
Also, can we set the base intercept mission chance on the wasp and locust to ~70%? While we don't always want ground units to intercept, we do want intercept mission aircraft to nearly always intercept.

Atreides needs another UU, and Ahriman has suggested a hornet. Any suggestions on which unit it should replace, and the stats?

If they have a sonic tank as a late-game UU and the hawk thopter as an early game UU, how about a replacement for the wasp hornet, with strength 8, range 6, and +10% intercept chance (and/or +10% evasion chance)?
There aren't too many common flying insect names left unused. Mantis, maybe?
Also, given how expensive it is, is it possible to have the pilot school give a +20% military production bonus while building hornet or thopter units? Would help add to the Atreides' uniqueness.

I would be inclined to leave the defenses, buildings, factories, strategic missions on all three bombers

OK.

Also, can we set the base intercept mission chance on the wasp and locust to ~70%?

Wasp is currently 10%, Locust is 30%. I don't use hornets very much, are you sure increasing them both to 70% is not too strong?

Do you like the costs of the five units? You had mentioned earlier that the wasp seemed too cheap.

How about a replacement for the wasp hornet, with strength 8, range 6, and +10% intercept chance (and/or +10% evasion chance)? There aren't too many common flying insect names left unused. Mantis, maybe?

OK. Since I have eliminated Bee Sting Trooper, I will use "Bee" as the unit name.

Also, given how expensive it is, is it possible to have the pilot school give a +20% military production bonus while building hornet or thopter units? Would help add to the Atreides' uniqueness.

Interesting idea. You may recall the "Desert Drydock" which has been removed. Sadly, buildings give production bonus by the unit domain. Hornets are domain air, which is fine; but both suspensors and thopters are domain sea. So I can either:

a. Make the building cheaper
b. Give production bonus to hornet only
c. Give production bonus to hornet, thopter and suspensor

What do you think?

Wasp is currently 10%, Locust is 30%. I don't use hornets very much, are you sure increasing them both to 70% is not too strong?

An intercept mission means you are dedicating that hornet to nothing but trying to intercept enemy aircraft; you're giving up the opportunity to use any mission yourself. The idea is to force you to not use bombers unescorted; you should have to send fighters in first, either attacking or using the attack enemy aircraft mission, to clear the way for your bombers.

A 10% intercept chance is utterly ineffectual in doing so; you can send your bombers in alone even against heavy air defenses, knowing that they will probably get through unscathed.

Interceptors should be far better at stopping air attacks than ground troops; this should be the primary mission of the interceptor. It starts to make the stacking limits really count too, when you can only have 3 aircraft per city.

For reference, some of the WW2 mods have interceptors with a 90% or 100% intercept chance, and they have great air power warfare.

Do you like the costs of the five units? You had mentioned earlier that the wasp seemed too cheap.

Partly that was that I was able to purchase a wasp through the homeworld screen for 60 gold.
I guess it could be 100 hammers, but it doesnt' feel wildly out of line.

OK. Since I have eliminated Bee Sting Trooper, I will use "Bee" as the unit name.
Well, I'm arguing for keeping 4 missile trooper types... but if you do use it, I'd use "beesting" or something rather than just "bee". "Bee" sounds boring, and a bit wimpy (like "gnat" would be).


a. Make the building cheaper
b. Give production bonus to hornet only
c. Give production bonus to hornet, thopter and suspensor


Any of these would be ok. I'd be inclined to go with c though; I kinda like an expensive building which encourages city specialization.

What does the domain control; the unit AI or AI building preferences, or is it just a label? If its just a label, could you change the thopter domain to air?

I see here some very certain problem.

1. Air units are very easy to counter - the problem that if we take stack of 100 Atreides UU and 10 Missile troopers in one stack those 100 UU will be useless. Each Missile trooper get chance for intrcpetion. Easy tactic. And when you reach 150% statistical chance - well, noone breach those stacking missile troopers intercept chances. Each unit get chance for interception.
2. This brings main problem - Atreides are easy counterable and their Air focus is too focused - and easy predictable / easy to fight againt. That is bad, since it make a. playiung atreides less interesting b. Makes atreides weak, since 7-8 missile troopers in stack and you can know that any amou8nt, what they will be, of air units are useless. Again - same MP balance issue.

As solution i propose not only focus Atreides on UU (sonic tank is TOO late)
but also provide them another choise. 1 Focus is to narrow, and being predictable enemy is being weak enemy.

If you have 100 missile troopers in a tile, something is very wrong. If you build an army composed primarily of missile troopers, you will get destroyed by normal ground units. We shouldn't be balancing things around having 8 specialist counter units in every stack of units.
If you have to build 8 missile troopers in every tile to counter a handful of bombers, who can instantly teleport around the map, then the missile troopers are too weak.

I see no problem with a faction who's primary strength is airpower anymore than there is a problem with a faction whose primary strength is melee (Fremen/Corrino) or Vehicles (Ix).
The other Atreides faction benefit should be diplomacy.

Potentially an alternative way of representing air superiority would be earlier access to to airport unit transport.

How about an Atreides only National Wonder, available at Air Combat (or earlier?), which allows for a one-unit airlift?

"Ducal Frigate"?

Idea being the same as for the others; Atreides have one functioning Frigate that survived the Great Catastrophe. We could have similar sorts of things for other factions (ie one copy of a Cool Thing that they get earlier than others - maybe a national wonder hammer or trade booster, or whatever).

Please note Slvynn wrote 10 missile troopers. 10 troopers guarding an individual city seems high, but 3 may be reasonable. His point (which I did not realize) is that each missile trooper can intercept any number of times. In 1.6.5 I have given the ground units a 30% intercept chance and the fighters a 70% intercept chance. So, if you have 3 missile troopers protecting a city, a given bomber has about a 35% chance of surviving. (It has to survive 3 attacks, each with a 70% survival, so 0.7 * 0.7 * 0.7. That seems OK to me.

A UU hornet by itself may not be enough of a second boost to Atreides. It is only a few lines of xml, we can leave it in as an experiment.

We have discussed before about Atreides diplomacy. I guess one proposal would be a +1 to everybody except -1 to Harkonnen. I think the only existing way to do this is to use the one "extra" field in the diplomacy calculations; that is the one I am using for "Your terraforming is threatening the spice". So I would need to add a second extra field. I have not studied out how to do that, but I can put it onto the list.

Please note Slvynn wrote 10 missile troopers.

True, apologies for the error. Still, I think the point remains. 10 missile troopers in a tile can defend just that one tile. You can't have 10 missile troopers everywhere. I think 2-3 is the more appropriate way to balance, I think.

His point (which I did not realize) is that each missile trooper can intercept any number of times

Yes, this is true. Which is why I agreed with Sylvnn that the intercept chance on missile troopers needed to be decreased.
I'm pretty sure that an intercepting fighter can also intercept mutiple times per turn though - its just that it takes damage each time (and so it risks being destroyed), unlike a ground AA unit.

a given bomber has about a 35% chance of surviving
A 35% chance of succeeding in its mission; it will not be destroyed every time it is intercepted, most times it will just take damage.

A UU hornet by itself may not be enough of a second boost to Atreides.
Oh, I agree, ideally I want many more features added to every civ. Atreides aren't the only ones who don't have much atm.

I agree with Slyvnn that its a good idea to track faction special units and mechanics with a table; I just disagree that the table should be 9x9, where each mechanic is entered as a counter to mechanics of other factions.
Faction balance should be done as a whole, so I'd think such a table should just be 9x1.

I guess one proposal would be a +1 to everybody except -1 to Harkonnen. I think the only existing way to do this is to use the one "extra" field in the diplomacy calculations; that is the one I am using for "Your terraforming is threatening the spice". So I would need to add a second extra field. I have not studied out how to do that, but I can put it onto the list.

Or +2/-2, or even +3/-3. Remember that Falamar in FFH had a +4 modifier to every female leader, and it wasn't particularly unbalancing.
Understood that this will need some code-crunching though.

I agree with Slyvnn that its a good idea to track faction special units and mechanics with a table; I just disagree that the table should be 9x9, where each mechanic is entered as a counter to mechanics of other factions.
Faction balance should be done as a whole, so I'd think such a table should just be 9x1.

Hopefully this won't reactivate the MP debate, but I think there are two stages:

1. 9x1 table. Some civs are very overpowered (Ecaz now) and some are underpowered (BG now). At this post (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=8547522&postcount=13), I listed the UU/UB/UA for each civ. Once we agree this list looks balanced, this stage is done. (I'll update it for 1.6.4 shortly, and then for 1.6.5 after it comes out.)

2. 9x9 table. Consider playing 81 separate two player games, and playing each combination several times. With two AI players, or two human players of equal skill, you should see each side winning 50% of the time. It may be that Ecaz seems strong, but suppose for example Fremen can beat them badly every time. That highlights something. It is not clear exactly how to use this feedback, but if we find this result, it would tell us we need to understand how Fremen targets some weak point of Ecaz or how the Ecaz strengths don't help against Fremen. That is just an example, but it seems like a good goal.

I still thing that only Air boost is bad - If you played this game enough you will know is most dangerous thing is SoD (Stack of Doom), which can be real threat to all things. So if we take 8 missile troopers in such stack, and this number not big at all, and 8 missile troopers will render huge stacks of air units useless. Even if it is 6 - and 6 is common number - that will be major loss of hammers for aircraft using side.
Please note that, and also well pointed alreaduy way of good design - design SP but keep MP relevant, there are still alot of features can be added/modified. simply need to add them.

Main point - Single focused civ is weak civ - because it have too little options .

Also 9x9 is still needed because we still need 9 x 1x9 to make full observation
If lets say Civ A have vehicle UUs and Civ B have UUs which are good vs vehicles > civ B counter civ A and this result is not good, then at this stage civ A ned to get another unit/building, not necessary if it will be military, it can be their eco UB, more XP UB, another choice, something, and other civs tuned. Again single focus = weakness. If flavor is low - as in vanilla - uselessness of UU is not big loss, but if whole focus made toward single thing - and all civs sucess based on it - if it rendered useless this is major harm to civ and whole balance.

That mean i agree with 2 last posts, espessialy David's one. :)

That is just an example, but it seems like a good goal.

I don't see any particular reason why the strengths of a given faction A are likely to be different for faction B vs faction C.

I can't think of mechanics or units that we have that are particularly useful or not useful vs particular other factions. What bonuses are there that Ecaz uses that would be more or less useful vs Fremen (or any other faction)?
I don't see the point in doing this kind of analysis unless we really think that there are mechanics with differential effects. And I don't think there are.

If you played this game enough you will know is most dangerous thing is SoD (Stack of Doom), which can be real threat to all things
Yes Slyvnn I have played this game a lot, and I know that stacks of doom are powerful.
But in a stack of doom, there will be large advantages for the defender vs *every* unit type, because of how stack combat works in Civ, where the strongest unit defends. It doesn't matter if have just air units or a mix of air and other types; every unit you attack with will be defended against by its appropriate counter.
If you have tough melee units, guess what, they won't work against a stack of doom with a ton of thopters and Shock-promoted units.

and 8 missile troopers will render huge stacks of air units useless
So what? Why should you be able to bomb a stack of doom into oblivion, thus making them easy pickings for the rest of your army? That's not what air units are for. With air units you don't throw them against the biggest baddest stack of ground troops. The advantages of air units aren't raw power, they're strategic manueverability (instantly teleporting across the map!), range (being able to hit units a long way away) and being able to damage weaker stacks (that don't have 6-8 missile troopers) so that you can kill them off without taking any losses.
Not every ability is designed to be most effective against stacks of Doom.

Main point - Single focused civ is weak civ - because it have too little options
One can have a single *theme* without being narrow in focus.
I just posted an in-theme example (better air transport between cities) that has an Air Power theme, but is not vulnerable to the same units that hornets are.
I'd agree that if all Atreides had were just better hornets, that might be a bit boring. But with a mix of better thopters for raiding and escort (hawk thopter has extra movement), better hornets for damaging units from afar and providing rapid strike response, better late game tanks (sonic tank), better strategic mobility (Ducal Frigate) and better diplomacy, we have an in-theme but well-rounded faction.

I dont like civ flavor being determined just by simple unitclass-2 focus
I'd make Atreides and their art of negotiation usefull too , as been mentioned before. Perhaps other mechanic which make them more deep and interesting. "Just air units" seems boring and still weak in terms of MP -its easy to counter.
Why we need stubbornly stay stuck on "air-only" theme (well, Sonic is too late to be taken into consideration) , when there are plenty nice options.

I don't see any particular reason why the strengths of a given faction A are likely to be different for faction B vs faction C.

I agree we can get a lot from the 9x1 table and we should do that first. We all agree the 9x9 table is a lot of work. I can't immediately think of a real example in DW where A vs B games come out 50/50 but A vs C games come out 90/10. But without at least thought experiments, it is hard to disprove.

One can have a single *theme* without being narrow in focus ... But with a mix of better thopters for raiding and escort (hawk thopter has extra movement), better hornets for damaging units from afar and providing rapid strike response, better late game tanks (sonic tank), better strategic mobility (Ducal Frigate) and better diplomacy, we have an in-theme but well-rounded faction.

I agree that combination could be well-rounded but I am not sure it represents *one* theme. That list is an airplane, another airplane, a tank, a leftover frigate, and diplomacy. We need to keep the themes as focused as reasonably possible, without making an obvious counter to the civ. A vanilla civ which focused entirely on horses would be too vulnerable to all-spearman armies.

I've updated the UU post for 1.6.4; let's switch the general topic of the 9x1 table over to there.

I can't immediately think of a real example in DW where A vs B games come out 50/50 but A vs C games come out 90/10

This is my point...

But without at least thought experiments, it is hard to disprove.

We do a thought experiment with each mechanic we introduce. I already do this as part of the design analysis. This is why I didn't really like many of the Butlerian jihad ideas; they seemed like they would violate this design issue. But until we find a case like that above, we shouldn't waste time thinking about things just because we can't disprove them. You don't run a simulation unless you have some reason to think that the results might go weird.

I agree that combination could be well-rounded but I am not sure it represents *one* theme.

The main theme is "air power". Whether you call this a theme or not is pure semantics. Like I said, I agree with the idea that a faction's advantage shouldn't just be "hornet UUs".

I see here some very certain problem.

1. Air units are very easy to counter - the problem that if we take stack of 100 Atreides UU and 10 Missile troopers in one stack those 100 UU will be useless. Each Missile trooper get chance for intrcpetion.

This is not correct.

In any given air attack only one unit gets a chance to intercept. It is always the unit with the highest interception chance. See: "Air Combat in BTS Explained" (http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/strategy/air_combat.php) by Stormreaver.

I need to check then if any of original parameters from BTS were changed..... OR it just seemms to me that stack with 5-6 missile troopers intercept tooo often.

Anyways, its agreed that civ need more than one focus, and thats good.

This is not correct.

In any given air attack only one unit gets a chance to intercept. It is always the unit with the highest interception chance

Huh! Good to know! Thanks for that GE, looks like we were wrong. I'm still inclined to support a reduction from 50% on missile troopers, they do seem to intercept a little too often, but maybe we should start with 40%? Remember that there are 2 interception promotions that they can get too that will boost this.

Yep, agree, i have same feel, and i made tests.
May be there is some code change for DW which make difference from BTS?
All we need is to make testing for sure, and agree - there are also promotions, and whith them its just too hight chance to intercept.

and i made tests

Did your tests support the suggestion that an air unit was intercepted by a missile trooper 50% of the time, no matter how many missile troopers were in the stack?

I tested 8 mt against 20 hornets (WB adding to played game), and vast majority was intercepted.
I made it once though *shrug* may be i been unlucky but i had/have feeling that it is more....

Ok, I will try to do some more rigorous testing.

Testing:

a)
1 missile trooper on 1 tile. Wasp hornets strafing the tile.
First attempt intercepted - damaged.
5 more successful (missile trooper dies).

b)
1 missile trooper with interception 1, interception 2, on 1 tile. Wasp hornets strafing the tile.
First attempt intercepted - damaged.
5 more successful (missile trooper dies).

c)
2 missile troopers on 1 rile. Wasp hornets strafing the tile.
First attempt intercepted - damaged.
Second attempt intercepted - shot down.
6 more successful attempts.

d)
3 missile troopers on 1 rile. Wasp hornets strafing the tile.
First hornet succeeds.
Second hornet intercepted (shot down)
6 more successful attempts.

e)
8 missile troopers on 8 tiles, 1 hornet attacking each tile.
4 hornets are intercepted, of whom 2 are shot down, 2 are damaged.
4 hornets are not intercepted.

f)
10 missile troopers (with interception 1 and 2) on 10 tiles, 1 hornet attacking each tile.
7 hornets are intercepted, of whom 4 are shot down.
3 hornets are not intercepted.

Conclusions:
1. e), f) -> Missile troopers do have 50% intercept chance. The interception promotions work as expected.
2. a) Missile troopers can only intercept once per turn each.
3. c), d) -> Multiple units in the tile with the same intercept chance do not seem to help; the highest intercept chance unit still gets used, even if that unit has already intercepted (??).

Thanks! For 1.6.5, I have changed the ground unit intercept chance to 30% and the fighter intercept chance to 70%. Do these values seem ok?

We'll test it once released,
imo Missile trooper value seem to be all-right, unsure about fighter.

Thanks! For 1.6.5, I have changed the ground unit intercept chance to 30% and the fighter intercept chance to 70%. Do these values seem ok?

The fighter intercept seems fine, I'm unsure about the missile launcher intercept but it seems reasonable for now.

Lets try to discuss this issue again (came up in succession thread):
Bombers cannot get complete kills on units using airstrikes, but interceptors can.
This feels odd; is this really what we want?

Our options are:
a) Status quo
b) Bombers can get complete kills, fighters can't.
c) Bombers AND fighters get complete kills
d) Neither bombers nor fighters get complete kills.
e) Possible to have complete kills only against some types of units??? Aren't their WW2 mods where you can get complete kills on naval units (sinking the ship) but not on land units? So maybe it would be possible to kill suspensor units and hornets, but not ground units?

I'm not sure which I'd favor.