Ranged Bombard Rework Project
- Thread starter Thunderbrd
- Start date
Thunderbrd
C2C War Dog
Ah... that's right... we set up the Bellybow as an early Heavy Crossbow and the Compound Bow was an advanced Shortbow.
These are Combat Class (weapon categories) not unit types - forming base values upon which unit types among those classes may advance further.
These are Combat Class (weapon categories) not unit types - forming base values upon which unit types among those classes may advance further.
Dancing Hoskuld
Deity
I still think you are getting ranged bombardment mixed up with combined assault.
Thunderbrd
C2C War Dog
I'm reading the code and testing the mechanism... there's no mistake here. Try this before I commit my changes here... open up the world builder and put a unit in play that's supposed to have ranged bombardment ability next to a foe's position - one that's supposed to HAVE ranged Bombardment but does NOT have any Collateral.
Then go in and Ranged Bombard your enemy's tile and see how that works out. Even if you hit (which you should test until you do) you won't do ANY damage to the units there. This is because your unit doesn't have any collateral!!!
EDIT: A perfect example: The Ballista Elephant. It doesn't have the greatest of accuracy so you'll need to plop down a number of them so you can strike till you hit but they are otherwise a very good example (and make sure there's plenty of defenders there so you can really verify it.)
Then go in and Ranged Bombard your enemy's tile and see how that works out. Even if you hit (which you should test until you do) you won't do ANY damage to the units there. This is because your unit doesn't have any collateral!!!
EDIT: A perfect example: The Ballista Elephant. It doesn't have the greatest of accuracy so you'll need to plop down a number of them so you can strike till you hit but they are otherwise a very good example (and make sure there's plenty of defenders there so you can really verify it.)
Would it be possible to give these units some experience points if their bombardment attack was successful. Its random whether they the target hit or not - so if they do succeed they should gain experience. Say 0.05. Small, I know but they are not in danger if protected by other units and a larger value may be overkill (pun intended). Also overtime it mounts up.
Thunderbrd
C2C War Dog
I've added a +1 base XP for a successful ranged bombard.
I'm not too familiar with all the stats to comment but the overall ambition sounds excellent. One minor detail though while we're at it: Please make the icon for ranged bombardment look different than ordinary bombardment! Don't know how many times I've done one when I wanted to do the other because the buttons are identical...
Thunderbrd
C2C War Dog
Excellent point! I very much agree and had been thinking of doing so but thanks for the reminder.
stolenrays
Deity
- Joined
- Aug 2, 2009
- Messages
- 2,061
Why not do away with range bombardment and just rework the vanilla range strike function? I've been thinking of the same thing myself.
Thunderbrd
C2C War Dog
Well... what I've put together here I like so far and there's just a bit of XML work to go. Ranged Strike seems good too but I like retaining it for the Snipers as we have it there.
Chazcon
Prince
Nice, I am using a similar complete rewrite of DCM in my Bombard Mod and Ranged Fire Mod since back in the Warlord days. I credit Dale for the original concept but it's a completely new. Unfortunately life keeps getting in the way big time and I haven't posted anything up in ages, it's become a very slow process. I'll get the time to do several weeks of intensive work and then I can't touch it at all for months or even years. I'm currently working on Civ4 but the last time I touched it was 2011, and what, 2007 before that. So by the time I post up ChazMod3.0 we'll be into Civ9 lol!
Thunderbrd
C2C War Dog
I'd share with y'all the code but without the additional Combat Classes, you'd have a gap not starting from the C2C base. We have multiple combat classes on units here and those CCs can provide the bases of unit values themselves so this is a wonderful way to work in further benefits to that structure.
But yeah, overall the primary identified problems have a number of possible ways to be addressed of course.
But yeah, overall the primary identified problems have a number of possible ways to be addressed of course.
Thunderbrd
C2C War Dog
Ok, this project is completed and on the SVN pending any feedback prompting potential adjustments.
Page 1 of the planning document details the bonus values assigned to units as well as the base values assigned to their unit combat classes and shows how they line up. This first page shows the WAY they were assigned and is important for fitting new units into the system with balances similar to the originally assigned unit values.
Page 2 details the final values after comparing a unit to how it was arranged on all of it's combat class listings - it gets the best base values among all of its Unit Combats and the total should not exceed the highest total it gets but the actual unit modifier may need to adjust to match up to the highest value among its unit combats - this for all of its ranged bombard tags individually. Here it shows how they added up after this comparison.
Promotions were planned out on this document so we've got a spread sheet on how they have been arranged for your perusal if curious.
Feedback is welcome. I'm particularly looking to see if the Damage tags should all be doubled as I'm not 100% sure how they'll feel in the game and have some suspicion that aligning them by these values then doubling them may be the needed way to go.
Can everyone see the pattern and thereby infer the thinking behind the way these have been assigned out? I'm curious to see if it's just confusing or if players can catch on to the significant differences between the different types of weaponry and how they enact ranged bombard attacks with differing strengths and weaknesses and how that influences decisions in play.
Anyhow, this certainly should work better than what we HAD - no offense to the original designers who had some great concepts in the first place.
Page 1 of the planning document details the bonus values assigned to units as well as the base values assigned to their unit combat classes and shows how they line up. This first page shows the WAY they were assigned and is important for fitting new units into the system with balances similar to the originally assigned unit values.
Page 2 details the final values after comparing a unit to how it was arranged on all of it's combat class listings - it gets the best base values among all of its Unit Combats and the total should not exceed the highest total it gets but the actual unit modifier may need to adjust to match up to the highest value among its unit combats - this for all of its ranged bombard tags individually. Here it shows how they added up after this comparison.
Promotions were planned out on this document so we've got a spread sheet on how they have been arranged for your perusal if curious.
Feedback is welcome. I'm particularly looking to see if the Damage tags should all be doubled as I'm not 100% sure how they'll feel in the game and have some suspicion that aligning them by these values then doubling them may be the needed way to go.
Can everyone see the pattern and thereby infer the thinking behind the way these have been assigned out? I'm curious to see if it's just confusing or if players can catch on to the significant differences between the different types of weaponry and how they enact ranged bombard attacks with differing strengths and weaknesses and how that influences decisions in play.
Anyhow, this certainly should work better than what we HAD - no offense to the original designers who had some great concepts in the first place.
Hydromancerx
C2C Modder
@TB
Since some units got move I think some of your Laser Units should not have Laser Weapons.
Such as ...
- Hi-Tech Marine - I think its still in the Modern Era
- Walker Droid - Got moved to Early Transhuman/ Late Modern
There may be more but I would have to check.
Since some units got move I think some of your Laser Units should not have Laser Weapons.
Such as ...
- Hi-Tech Marine - I think its still in the Modern Era
- Walker Droid - Got moved to Early Transhuman/ Late Modern
There may be more but I would have to check.
Thunderbrd
C2C War Dog
Those are the only 2 before grid x 92 and in pulling up the tech tree I got a better feel for your intentions there so I've now adjusted their unit combats and rbombard values as well. I know you've pointed the walker out before but I never went back to do a full re-eval. I took away all weapons and started over with a primary dist weapon of fully automatic and backup of grenade. He's an early prototypical military field scout that is equipped to defend itself if trouble comes its way as it were. Got it. Had to also remove his energy shield since it wouldn't have been developed by then.
The marine is too early as you point out and also rearranged his weaponry - particularly energy gloves wouldn't be in play yet I'd say.
I have a feeling this whole end of the game will get a serious overhaul at some point again once focus gets more onto the era but for now this works ok methinks.
The marine is too early as you point out and also rearranged his weaponry - particularly energy gloves wouldn't be in play yet I'd say.
I have a feeling this whole end of the game will get a serious overhaul at some point again once focus gets more onto the era but for now this works ok methinks.
Hydromancerx
C2C Modder
@TB
So I am looking though the tech tree and this is how things are so far ...
- Laser (X84) Early Modern Era and no where near the level of weaponization.
- Controlled Plasma (X96) - Early Transhuman Era and where the first Plasma weaponry. Which take over for the Flamethrowers.
- Fusion (X98) - The big step in getting enough power to energy weapons and powering other hi-tech units.
- Railgun (X98) - The upgrade of projectile kinetic weapons. Basically the "guns" of the future.
- Wireless Electricity (X103) -This along with Fusion means everything can be powered and nothing has to rely upon the size of batteries. This is where I think Weaponized Lasier weapons would began. Either this of Fusion., But its hard to have moble fusion reactor. Perhaps on a ship but not an infantry uni or even a mech. Thus I think this is the earliest tech you can get handheld laser weapons. Note we may want to add a specific tech at this time.
So then that asks where do the other units on the tree sit compared to this?
- Hi-Tech Marine (UNIT_HITECH_MARINE) (X89) - Note this is to fill the role of today's Marines which are enhanced with electronic devices. Thus these should DEFIANTLY not be usng weaponized lasers.
- Hi-Tech APC (UNIT_FUTURE_APC) (X94) - This is still to early too. I recommend we redo this line and perhaps have a new early-transhuman names such as Digital ACP or something like this. Basically the Digital/Information Age stuff.
- Hybrid Gunship (UNIT_HYBRID_GUNSHIP) (x94) - Yeah this is even pre-Fussion so this should not have lasers either.
- Police Mech (UNIT_POLICE_MECH) (x94) -I am reluctant but as you can see its a very early mech and would not have that kind of weapons yet.
- Exoskelleton Infantry (UNIT_EXOARMORED_INFANTRY) (x94) - This is the same a the Police Mech. So no laser weapons yet.
- Scout Droid (UNIT_SCOUT_MECH) (x95) - This is just basically a scouting robot. Very low robotic technology and still not advanced enough for laser weapons.
- Anti-Personnel Mech (UNIT_ANTI_PERSONNEL_MECH) (X102) - This one is in the middle zone. Its after Fusion but before Wireless Electricity. I could see it having laser but it might not be big enough to hold a moble Fusion reactor like all the "Fusion" seacrafts do. But then again it uses an Internal Shockwave Engine so I think it might be workable.
How about this ...
Fusion - Start of Ship Based Laser Weapons.
Internal Shockwave Engine - Start of Mech and Vehicle Laser Weapons.
Wireless Electricity = Start of Handheld Laser Weapons.
Note that the Laser Battery building starts at Fusion tech.
So I am looking though the tech tree and this is how things are so far ...
- Laser (X84) Early Modern Era and no where near the level of weaponization.
- Controlled Plasma (X96) - Early Transhuman Era and where the first Plasma weaponry. Which take over for the Flamethrowers.
- Fusion (X98) - The big step in getting enough power to energy weapons and powering other hi-tech units.
- Railgun (X98) - The upgrade of projectile kinetic weapons. Basically the "guns" of the future.
- Wireless Electricity (X103) -This along with Fusion means everything can be powered and nothing has to rely upon the size of batteries. This is where I think Weaponized Lasier weapons would began. Either this of Fusion., But its hard to have moble fusion reactor. Perhaps on a ship but not an infantry uni or even a mech. Thus I think this is the earliest tech you can get handheld laser weapons. Note we may want to add a specific tech at this time.
So then that asks where do the other units on the tree sit compared to this?
- Hi-Tech Marine (UNIT_HITECH_MARINE) (X89) - Note this is to fill the role of today's Marines which are enhanced with electronic devices. Thus these should DEFIANTLY not be usng weaponized lasers.
- Hi-Tech APC (UNIT_FUTURE_APC) (X94) - This is still to early too. I recommend we redo this line and perhaps have a new early-transhuman names such as Digital ACP or something like this. Basically the Digital/Information Age stuff.
- Hybrid Gunship (UNIT_HYBRID_GUNSHIP) (x94) - Yeah this is even pre-Fussion so this should not have lasers either.
- Police Mech (UNIT_POLICE_MECH) (x94) -I am reluctant but as you can see its a very early mech and would not have that kind of weapons yet.
- Exoskelleton Infantry (UNIT_EXOARMORED_INFANTRY) (x94) - This is the same a the Police Mech. So no laser weapons yet.
- Scout Droid (UNIT_SCOUT_MECH) (x95) - This is just basically a scouting robot. Very low robotic technology and still not advanced enough for laser weapons.
- Anti-Personnel Mech (UNIT_ANTI_PERSONNEL_MECH) (X102) - This one is in the middle zone. Its after Fusion but before Wireless Electricity. I could see it having laser but it might not be big enough to hold a moble Fusion reactor like all the "Fusion" seacrafts do. But then again it uses an Internal Shockwave Engine so I think it might be workable.
How about this ...
Fusion - Start of Ship Based Laser Weapons.
Internal Shockwave Engine - Start of Mech and Vehicle Laser Weapons.
Wireless Electricity = Start of Handheld Laser Weapons.
Note that the Laser Battery building starts at Fusion tech.
Thunderbrd
C2C War Dog
I have to first say that I'm exhausted by the massive disorder and lack of organization past mid-modern in the unit tree in the first place. I've been pretty much spending the whole day trying to make heads or tails of it all and there's absolutely no game balance whatsoever throughout those entire periods. I THINK that some techs being moved around had a lot to do with that.
Additionally, I'm looking at those eras and it seems like each tech is a quantum leap with very few transitional techs as we have in every other era. We go from now into what's likely to be many many decades from now overnight in the transition between what technology we're working on today to what technologies are being applied tomorrow. Maybe in some ways that's possible - but I figure we're still probably a 100 years away from mechs or so today and there's so much that will come between now and then. That any mech would be available before simple laser weaponry becomes common use (since we're really developing fairly weak laser weaponry NOW as anti-missile systems) seems a stretch to me. The bigger issue here is that unit upgrades are simply advancing far too fast throughout these eras imo. And I think there's a LOT of additional development work pending for the transhuman and beyond.
But then again I haven't been spending much time evaluating the choices going into these tech ranges because I feel the rest of the game needs a lot more work before we really dig into it all.
Anyhow, I will be happy to concede to what you just laid forth and really don't have tooooo much disagreement except that I feel that the 'forms' of these units are advancing waaaaay too fast for the surrounding technologies. A bit subjective of course and just an opinion in a region where little but opinions can apply. Making the Anti-Personnel mech the first to really wield laser weaponry seems reasonable enough.
Ok, back to the drawing board on all affected units then.
Hydromancerx
C2C Modder
@TB
Well Afforess and Zappra layed down the groundwork for the original transhuman era. Then Civ_Fuhrer and I added a bit more (mostly Galactic Era) and the it was MrAzure who added to most of what we had today. You can say alot about him but he did have some great ideas for the ground work of the Transhuman Era.
The problem is the units have been slow to keep up with the techs and buildings. I have tried to fix some of them and fill in gaps, but there is a still a lot more that needs to be done. When I have time again to work on them I will try to get them more sorted out.
Well Afforess and Zappra layed down the groundwork for the original transhuman era. Then Civ_Fuhrer and I added a bit more (mostly Galactic Era) and the it was MrAzure who added to most of what we had today. You can say alot about him but he did have some great ideas for the ground work of the Transhuman Era.
The problem is the units have been slow to keep up with the techs and buildings. I have tried to fix some of them and fill in gaps, but there is a still a lot more that needs to be done. When I have time again to work on them I will try to get them more sorted out.
Thunderbrd
C2C War Dog
I understand. Actually... my feelings on Azure's works were that he had a well structured vision and we may have disrupted it too greatly and by trying to 'thin' the techs he introduced we have elminated what would've been a more satisfyingly gradual progression through those eras and turned it into a situation where the techs basically advance too quickly between them. Just an impression though... I could be wrong as I admit to not paying much attention to it all. Just seems like all techs there are military, scientific and explorative in nature and too few are social and philosophical developments.
A few comments on my side (a bit late, but I'm catching up!):
Not directly related to this project, but I feel the current promotion system (especially with fight or flee) is too overwhelming to be really useful; if there are even more promotions, I'm afraid they will just add to the long list of promotions I never use... I don't know if I'm the only one, but the difference between most promotions appears too minor to be worth the effort - do I want +10% str or +1 first strike? removing xp cap from animals or barbarians? etc. - that I always pick the same ones.
This is a bit OOT here though, so I'll develop on that in another topic later on.
I feel the current combat system is greatly biased in favor of defense, particularly regarding city invasion. I'm thus not a great fan of giving more possibilities for a city to defend; a walled city with damages on nearby units is already quite hard to take, if it's able to bombard stacks from inside, it will become nearly invincible...
OK, once again that's a broader subject than just bombardment (and the way it works now seems to be unintended rather than a feature), maybe the answer is in removing the penalty while rebalancing something else, but simply removing the penalty without changing anything else would not be a good thing IMHO.
My suggestion:
- Remove the possibility to bombard from inside a city from all siege units (catapult, cannon, etc.) as well as ships. This would probably make sense from a historical point of view by the way - those units need a large space to be handled properly, something that is usually lacking inside a city's walls. Also, even though city fortifications could include some bombardment elements, one could argue this is already represented through the defense bonus (increased damage done to attacking units) and the area damage bonus (spike traps, etc. - there could also be some arrow bombardment buildings).
- For the other units (archers, riflemen...), either also remove it, or maintain it but significantly lower their defensive capabilities. Their defense (including first strike) already represent the capacity of these units to take advantage of their long range to damage incoming enemies, now that this bombard capacity is implemented, they would really become overpowered.
Currently, they are units that are very hard to dispatch, but not that great in attack - great potential for synergies with other units, but not outstanding by themselves: they stand their ground (particularly in cities), but if you don't attack them, they are not a threat to nearby units.
With added bombardment, they would become both hard to dispatch and dangerous for units around them - no weak point!
My personal preference would be to remove at minimum the base city defense bonus (including available city defense promotions) from these units if we let them keep the bombard option from inside cities.
Or, for a wholly different approach, allow only a limited number of units "inside" a city - any number of units may be on a city square, but only, say, size/4 units (or another combination based on unit size with Size Matters) get the defensive bonus of the city (including wall protection), and they are attacked last - thus you can't stockpile large amount of units (especially with bombardment) inside a city.
Not directly related to this project, but I feel the current promotion system (especially with fight or flee) is too overwhelming to be really useful; if there are even more promotions, I'm afraid they will just add to the long list of promotions I never use... I don't know if I'm the only one, but the difference between most promotions appears too minor to be worth the effort - do I want +10% str or +1 first strike? removing xp cap from animals or barbarians? etc. - that I always pick the same ones.
This is a bit OOT here though, so I'll develop on that in another topic later on.
I feel the current combat system is greatly biased in favor of defense, particularly regarding city invasion. I'm thus not a great fan of giving more possibilities for a city to defend; a walled city with damages on nearby units is already quite hard to take, if it's able to bombard stacks from inside, it will become nearly invincible...
OK, once again that's a broader subject than just bombardment (and the way it works now seems to be unintended rather than a feature), maybe the answer is in removing the penalty while rebalancing something else, but simply removing the penalty without changing anything else would not be a good thing IMHO.
My suggestion:
- Remove the possibility to bombard from inside a city from all siege units (catapult, cannon, etc.) as well as ships. This would probably make sense from a historical point of view by the way - those units need a large space to be handled properly, something that is usually lacking inside a city's walls. Also, even though city fortifications could include some bombardment elements, one could argue this is already represented through the defense bonus (increased damage done to attacking units) and the area damage bonus (spike traps, etc. - there could also be some arrow bombardment buildings).
- For the other units (archers, riflemen...), either also remove it, or maintain it but significantly lower their defensive capabilities. Their defense (including first strike) already represent the capacity of these units to take advantage of their long range to damage incoming enemies, now that this bombard capacity is implemented, they would really become overpowered.
Currently, they are units that are very hard to dispatch, but not that great in attack - great potential for synergies with other units, but not outstanding by themselves: they stand their ground (particularly in cities), but if you don't attack them, they are not a threat to nearby units.
With added bombardment, they would become both hard to dispatch and dangerous for units around them - no weak point!
My personal preference would be to remove at minimum the base city defense bonus (including available city defense promotions) from these units if we let them keep the bombard option from inside cities.
Or, for a wholly different approach, allow only a limited number of units "inside" a city - any number of units may be on a city square, but only, say, size/4 units (or another combination based on unit size with Size Matters) get the defensive bonus of the city (including wall protection), and they are attacked last - thus you can't stockpile large amount of units (especially with bombardment) inside a city.
