Naval Units Rework Project

Dancing Hoskuld said:
There is nothing at the moment.

I was working on python to upgrade the reef/coral when a beacon was placed on it to a new improvement reef with beacon which did less damage and had a lower effect on speed of units.
Click to expand...

Hmm... that could certainly be done there. I really do need to look into the programming on builds that generate new features... from what I recall it's something I noted could be done in a more efficient and generically xml programmable manner. It would certainly be easy enough to generate an ability for an improvement to reduce terrain damage on a plot in general though so that would be an easy tag along the way here.

But just getting confirmation that there's nothing that can be done at the moment about specific feature damage reduction (or even making some units worse at taking damage from particular features) lets me know what I need to do here. And its pretty simple - I just wanted to make sure I wouldn't have to overlap efforts on this. Thanks!


This naval review will have me programming more new tags and effects and reviewing certain code behaviors than I thought. Might take up a fair bit more significant a project than the simple XML I figured it would. That's ok though. All the stuff I want to do right away will be pretty easily done. Will be nice to be working in the realms of the familiar for a bit. As usual, it's the AI adaptations that will be a pain.
 
Could you work around it by applying a repair effect after the damage?
Something like:
Feature: Take 10% damage
Improvement: Get 5% repair (applies after damage)
 
Taxman66 said:
Could you work around it by applying a repair effect after the damage?
Something like:
Feature: Take 10% damage
Improvement: Get 5% repair (applies after damage)
Click to expand...
Not with base tags we have already and a more direct method would be even easier to implement so I'm going in that direction.

Dancing Hoskuld said:
Improvements don't do damage only terrain and terrain features. Otherwise I would have been able to do it already :D
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Ah... While I'm setting up for improvements to reduce damage from a plot I could easily make the same tag capable of causing damage as well so if you want that as a potential effect then I can do that but for what you were originally trying to do the ability to reduce damage (but not lower than 0 so that it can accidentally become a healing plot through this effect) would be sufficient.
 
Would not an oasis in the desert be considered a healing plot?:mischief:

Currently sea terrain features can cause damage and slow movement. This happens even if you have the terrain damage option off.

I think we need the ability to reduce the damage done both by improvement and technology but never going below zero.

The same for the speed. However there is a bug in the calculation of speed over land. Sometimes caves and cactus increase how much you can move and they should not.
 
An improvement is unlocked by a tech so improvement and tech are basically the same thing. I suggest the reductions be by improvement(s) (representing tech/s) and promotion(s).

However, we then (and same goes for the speed thing) run into the problem of the lack of a terrain-mitigating promo for post-wooden ships (ie. since they can't get Maneuvring I).

(Iron Frigates et al. get around it by being entirely immune to terrain cost, but that is not ultimately a satisfactory solution).
 
Dancing Hoskuld said:
Would not an oasis in the desert be considered a healing plot?:mischief:
Click to expand...
That could be setup but I wouldn't want to do it through the same tag as healing should not ever be a matter of inversed damage since it operates on slightly different principles.

Dancing Hoskuld said:
Currently sea terrain features can cause damage and slow movement. This happens even if you have the terrain damage option off.
Click to expand...
Are those done by tags or by python effects?

Dancing Hoskuld said:
I think we need the ability to reduce the damage done both by improvement and technology but never going below zero.
Click to expand...
As Yudishtira mentioned, I'm not seeing the benefit of having it directly affected by tech. However, unitclasses, unitcombats, promos and improvements make sense to all have a possible tag for that... the first three being able to specify reductions for specific terrains and features... improvements wouldn't require such specification because the particular improvements would obviously be limited to being built where they are intended to have that effect.

Dancing Hoskuld said:
The same for the speed. However there is a bug in the calculation of speed over land. Sometimes caves and cactus increase how much you can move and they should not.
Click to expand...
There's a few odd things taking place in the pathing and move calculations I've noticed. However, I'm not sure it's a code bug so much as some kind of xml thing going on with caves and cactus I'll have to look into.

Yudishtira said:
An improvement is unlocked by a tech so improvement and tech are basically the same thing. I suggest the reductions be by improvement(s) (representing tech/s) and promotion(s).

However, we then (and same goes for the speed thing) run into the problem of the lack of a terrain-mitigating promo for post-wooden ships (ie. since they can't get Maneuvring I).
Click to expand...
Thus certain unitcombats and unitclasses could by nature, rather than by promo, be given more specific ability in this regard.

Yudishtira said:
(Iron Frigates et al. get around it by being entirely immune to terrain cost, but that is not ultimately a satisfactory solution).
Click to expand...
Agreed. Straight immunity often is far too wide an application.
 
I found a small bug with the dreadnaught (the naval unit): it has an extreme range for ranged bombard, 11 instead of the 1 or 2 tiles typical of ships of the same era (see the pic). It happened with a very old revision of the SVN (june or even earlier), but since few people get to the industrial era I thought this bug could have passed unnoticed

PS don'tpay much attention to the other thing present in the pic, it just a game I play until I get bored
 

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Hale_9204 said:
I found a small bug with the dreadnaught (the naval unit): it has an extreme range for ranged bombard, 11 instead of the 1 or 2 tiles typical of ships of the same era (see the pic). It happened with a very old revision of the SVN (june or even earlier), but since few people get to the industrial era I thought this bug could have passed unnoticed

PS don'tpay much attention to the other thing present in the pic, it just a game I play until I get bored
Click to expand...

I would say it's about to be reworked anyhow but then again it should probably be something looked into for v35 release anyhow. My files are unwise to update to the SVN at the moment so if someone else can fix this for me please... The current DREADNOUGHT_HELGOLAND states:
Code: 
			<iLeaderExperience>0</iLeaderExperience>
			<iDCMBombRange>10</iDCMBombRange>
			<iDCMBombAccuracy>10</iDCMBombAccuracy>
			<iRBombardDamage>10</iRBombardDamage>
			<iRBombardDamageLimit>1</iRBombardDamageLimit>
			<iRBombardDamageMaxUnits>0</iRBombardDamageMaxUnits>
And should instead be:
Code: 
			<iLeaderExperience>0</iLeaderExperience>
			<iDCMBombRange>0</iDCMBombRange>
			<iDCMBombAccuracy>10</iDCMBombAccuracy>
			<iRBombardDamage>10</iRBombardDamage>
			<iRBombardDamageLimit>10</iRBombardDamageLimit>
			<iRBombardDamageMaxUnits>1</iRBombardDamageMaxUnits>
It was just offset one when put into the tags... sorry for that. Twas my oops.
 
I've been working on it here for a number of weeks already and it looks like it may be a week or two more to get it sewn up. The AI review is taking some time. I'll also need to do a little accompanying effect programming and of course we'll need to be discussing the necessary tech tree adjustments in some further depth. But yes, this is currently the project I'm working on and have been for a bit now. It's coming along... just slower than I would've expected.

Curious about one issue along the way here... Do we still want Subs to have flanking attacks against transports?
 
Yeah I'm on the fence with it too. Not sure it's a good idea but I don't know if it's really a bad one either. I'm open to the opinions of the forum on that matter. It's currently the only flanking strikes in use in naval warfare and it seems like it could be a problem from some angles. I'm going to be really looking deeply into naval AI here too and perhaps that should not be a reason to deny the effect. I'm just wondering if it's a good idea... I suppose that if Destroyers are protecting the transports the transports should be fine because the subs would have to withdraw to do this form of damage to them.
 
Thunderbrd said:
I'm going to be really looking deeply into naval AI here too and perhaps that should not be a reason to deny the effect. I'm just wondering if it's a good idea... I suppose that if Destroyers are protecting the transports the transports should be fine because the subs would have to withdraw to do this form of damage to them.
Click to expand...

During WW2, even with protected convoys. Subs could sink Merchant Ships. So I vote to keep the flanking option.
 
Harrier said:
During WW2, even with protected convoys. Subs could sink Merchant Ships. So I vote to keep the flanking option.
Click to expand...

That would suggest that they should flank against Merchant Vessels rather than troop transports. Though I suppose all of the above including troop ships (a new category that transports very large volumes of land units but the units on them cannot attack the coast whereas transports won't hold very many units but can allow the units on them to make landfall.)
 
I believe I've pretty much got enough of an idea to get the AI's setup properly (and enough to know there's a LOT of work that needs to be done there in which I could get so wrapped up it would be versions upon versions away before these units get done if I make that a prerequisite for completion of this project.)

So moving on.

I have a question about property manipulations... Are any properties tracked on naval plots or are they completely property negated?

And I'm also working on building prerequisites. I would like to try to reflect some real world accuracy on this matter so we may need some new buildings. But at least for those in the earlier eras, can anyone help me determine what would make for reasonable building prerequisites? I'm thinking just about all ships would require some sort of place where they are built. I know of the Drydock but I'm not sure when that would be in play exactly so some guidance there could be helpful.

Then I'll be looking at the techs... it's a little daunting as it's going to mean thoroughly reviewing the tech tree and even offering up some suggestions as to tweaks to the tree that will impact other areas of the game that will then need further review... but it does need to be done. We've had some preliminary discussions on this and I'll have to really look back through here to see what's been said on that subject.

But we're nearly there.

Also... resource requirements - ugh they're currently all over the place. I'll be setting those up in a more rational manner and hopefully nobody gets testy about that either. I'll be considering what will really be necessary to build these things and listing those off exactly as they would be.

Speaking of which, I think we need another 'material' resource, a heavy ceramic that actually strengthens as it is damaged has been rumored to be possible and something along those lines would make up the hulls of future ships until we have Nano hulls, to which some suggestion as to what THAT material is currently defined as would be helpful.

Thanks!
 
Ideally, subs primary ability/mission would be to reduce overseas enemy trade. But I imagine that would take some major coding and even more AI work.

An even bigger naval problem is that planes can't sink ships. I sorely wish that could be corrected as it is perhaps the biggest grievance I have with the Civ4 combat system.
 
Thunderbrd said:
I believe I've pretty much got enough of an idea to get the AI's setup properly (and enough to know there's a LOT of work that needs to be done there in which I could get so wrapped up it would be versions upon versions away before these units get done if I make that a prerequisite for completion of this project.)

So moving on.

I have a question about property manipulations... Are any properties tracked on naval plots or are they completely property negated?

And I'm also working on building prerequisites. I would like to try to reflect some real world accuracy on this matter so we may need some new buildings. But at least for those in the earlier eras, can anyone help me determine what would make for reasonable building prerequisites? I'm thinking just about all ships would require some sort of place where they are built. I know of the Drydock but I'm not sure when that would be in play exactly so some guidance there could be helpful.
Click to expand...

Drydocks tend to be for ships, but can also be for submarines. BUT if for submarines only they would be smaller and less expensive.

During WW2, after the Germans conquered Northern France. They built a lot of submarine silo's (a coastal building -drydock!). So they could attack Allied merchant fleet convoys, that came from Canada/USA.
 
Taxman66 said:
Ideally, subs primary ability/mission would be to reduce overseas enemy trade. But I imagine that would take some major coding and even more AI work.

An even bigger naval problem is that planes can't sink ships. I sorely wish that could be corrected as it is perhaps the biggest grievance I have with the Civ4 combat system.
Click to expand...

1) Some plans are afoot for manipulating how trade ships work thus making pirates and subs more worthwhile for this purpose. They can also blockade which is kinda what it's supposed to represent.

2) I might be able to make a tag that makes the max air strike damage depend on the unit being attacked and base it on unitcombat so that I can give torpedo UnitCombats possess an ability to sink ships while not disrupting its normal max damage against other land units.
 
Taxman66 said:
An even bigger naval problem is that planes can't sink ships. I sorely wish that could be corrected as it is perhaps the biggest grievance I have with the Civ4 combat system.
Click to expand...

It was very difficult for planes to sink ships even in WW2. It took a lot of planes and ships to sink the Bismark.

It was only in the 1980's, with the French Exocet missile that a ship was sunk by a plane only.
 
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