Thunderbrd
C2C War Dog
Player's Guide
to the
C2C Combat Mod - Size Matters
Game Option
I'm sure by now some of you have attempted the Size Matters game option and, seeing little more than a few extra combat classes assigned to units that didn't seem to have much effect, were wondering... huh? What's this all about?
Well... it was in a planning and development stage. To some extent it still is but the primary impact should now be fully active. And it's complex enough to warrant a full explanation.
Size Matters now makes the Combat Quality, Group Volume and Individual Entity Size of a given unit bear weight and meaning.
Under this option, it is valuable to consider the 'Strength' of the unit to be the general evaluation of the combat lethality of a unit when that unit has an average size, group volume, and combat quality. Units don't always START with average values, mind you, but MOST units will enter the game balancing out to an average between the three.
For each improved step up or down any of those three scales, a unit will patently be modified by 20% on its Combat Strength and Maximum Hit Points (which until now has always been 100 for all units.)
So for a unit that has a single step better than average Combat Quality while being of average size and average group volume, that unit will have 20% more strength and hp.
This required, of course, for a method that enabled strength values to be decimalized. Therefore under this option, you'll find all unit strengths are set to consider decimal values.
You'll immediately notice that not all units will always average out even from their base settings. I'll leave it to y'all to see if you can figure out what the patterns I determined for those few deviations are but animals in particular can show a wide variation as their group volumes, combat qualities and sizes were considered more for realism than an initial attempt at game accuracy, assuming that the animal strength values they had been initially assigned carried the presumption that all units represented only one individual. This seems, in testing to have worked out fairly well IMO but I'll let y'all give me the feedback you'll have once you experience the option.
Now... these base 20% adjustments to Strength and MaxHP are not the only adjustments these category level shifts can bring. Each category has its own special dynamics when a unit has a higher or lower level.
Let me pause here and express the three categories and the combat classes associated with their levels (in all cases, average is 5):
Combat Quality
Incapable - 0
Pathetic - 1
Inferior - 2
Poor - 3
Mediocre - 4
Standard - 5
Superior - 6
Exceptional - 7
Elite - 8
Epic - 9
Divine - 10
Group Volume
Solo (1) - 1
Party (2-6) - 2
Squad (7-20) - 3
Company (21-100) - 4
Battalion (101-600) - 5
Forces (601-2500) - 6
Clan (2600-10000) - 7
Horde (10001-100000) - 8
Multitudes (100k - 1 million) - 9
Millions - 10
Billions - 11
Trillions - 12
Countless - 13
Size
Fine - 1
Diminutive - 2
Tiny - 3
Small - 4
Medium - 5
Large - 6
Huge - 7
Gargantuan - 8
Colossal - 9
And more detail for each category:
Combat Quality
Combat Quality is the innate instinctual familiarity with combat the unit possesses. It encompasses the savagery, perseverance, and combat mindedness of the unit. It can be natural or learned. Thus a Pigeon has a terrible Combat Quality while a Tiger has a rather incredible one. Among human troops, usually specialized or culture specific units carry a higher quality while the standard troop type units like Infantry have a rather average level.
A unit can increase its Combat Quality via promotions. These promotions become available when the unit attains a level that qualifies for them. The higher the current Combat Quality of the unit, the higher the level it will need to qualify to take a promotion that gives it an increase.
Obviously, a 20% jump in Combat Strength and Max Hit Points is perhaps one of the strongest promotions a unit can ever take.
But it comes with some cons that make the decision to upgrade in this manner rather interesting.
First of all, any time a promotion that increases the combat quality is taken, the unit will lose ALL current XP, resetting down to 0 (thus it will take quite a while for the unit to earn its way back up to the next level since it must now earn all the xp it takes to get there!) This happens irregardless of the Infinite XP option.
Second, for every level shift greater or less than average, the unit earns more or less xp. Thus, the lower the combat quality, the easier the unit learns. The greater the combat quality, the slower it gains experience. Thus it makes the unit take EVEN LONGER to get to the next level.
Therefore a shift up in quality doesn't mean the unit won't ever improve again but it will mean it's going to take a long time for it to do so. Additionally, you must realize that a unit will be able to level a lot farther and take a LOT of promotions that it will otherwise lose the opportunity to have had by taking this quality step up.
Whether a unit will truly be more powerful this way will certainly be up for debate and player preference. Some players may prefer to simply gain more levels and promotions and maybe later down the road take a step up in quality for their units. Others will prefer to up the combat quality on all units as soon as possible. Both should be fairly valid choices.
Additionally, the greater the combat quality of the unit, the more expensive the unit is to maintain (they demand higher wages than the standard troop) and the more expensive the unit is to upgrade (they tend to have more equipment and thorough training to keep up with their standards).
Increases in Combat Quality will also soon bring about access to increasingly valuable base combat strength upgrade promotions. Some fame promotions that give exceedingly skilled units national fame and prestige that makes them more effective at making local city populaces more happy than most units will also be developed for higher end Combat Quality access. (Promotion lines supporting this option are among the few things I haven't gotten to quite yet.)
Currently there aren't any ways for combat qualities to be reduced but perhaps some diseases or poisons may (though that WILL be noteworthily complex to develop.)
In summary, the more 'elite' the unit, the higher the combat quality itself.
Group Volume
This represents the number of entities in the unit of that type. The volume of those numbers are shown in parentheses or are self explanatory. Thus, a small strike team will be a Party size Group while a full Infantry will be a Battalion sized group (average).
Immediately upon entering a game with this option you'll see the biggest adjustment this option brings being available on your units. (Well... most of them - many unitcombats are denied this special ability.)
There are two new actions units can take under the size matters option. They may be Split into 3 smaller groups (each losing a Size category level) OR 3 units of the same type with the same quality and group size may come together to Merge into one larger group (the one unit gaining the next larger size category.)
Thus if you take 3 Company sized Stone Throwers and Merge them all together, you'll get one Battalion sized Stone Thrower unit.
When splitting units, the level and most promotions will be translated directly across to the 3 resulting units. Level and XP will average when 3 units are joined and whatever promos they ALL share will be automatically retained by the resulting unit.
It does not COST movement or take the full turn to Merge OR Split. However, units may not merge or split if they are injured or have moved in that turn. It costs nothing to merge or split.
You may continue to split units until you can't split them any further (usually solo is the limiter but some units may find themselves unable to because they'd be too weakened due to their low quality.)
You may continue to join units until the maximum group category is obtained, (Countless.)
Obviously the immediate impact of a merge or split is to get 2 additional units with all 3 being 20% weaker or to get 1 unit out of three, that new unit being 20% stronger.
Consider the further balance points for smaller or greater group sizes however.
First, the lower the Group Volume, the less it costs to upkeep and to upgrade the unit (by 20% so when you do the math, greater group sized units actually cost less than the three units of a lower size but not by much.)
Second, Smaller group size units heal faster while greater group sized units take longer to heal - this can be the biggest detractor to the huge group size gatherings you might be initially inclined to want. Keep in mind, once injured the unit may not split until fully healed.
Terrain attack and defense and city attack and defense promo lines will be designed for varying size categories as well - indicating abilities for units to take advantage of open ground upon which they may swarm the enemy, or to take advantage of territory that allows for bottlenecks to enable them to take on a lot greater size force on even footing.
Most importantly, what strategies you'll want to utilize with splitting and merging will really depend on what situation you're in. I have NOT developed any AI for the ai players to utilize this feature yet and will be looking for YOUR feedback on the proper and best situations to split and/or merge units to be a guide to developing AI. I already know of a few good uses and will be working on that rudimentary AI soon but it might've taken me another month to release this modification if I'd waited to get all the AI in place and it's sometimes hard to say what is a better move or worse move where splitting/merging is concerned. So I'm opening up the floor for debates there.
You'll notice the mathematics involved in this do not split/merge units with perfectly measured ratio modifications for a three-way split or merge. This is to compensate for the differing combat and support conditions that larger or smaller units must face. Units are a 5th more or less powerful at each size adjustment while the merging and splitting is at a 1 to 3 ratio. This ratio offset tends to favor splitting over merging except that the way the odds and flow of combat work, larger units will be (on the face of it) far more valuable in terms of combat effectiveness.
So... feedback is appreciated on this feature.
Size
Size is fixed and cannot be altered (unless perhaps we get into some Ant-man/Goliath futuristic sci-fi stuff or fantasy stuff eventually in which case I'll need a little more programming along similar lines to the other adjustable categories.)
However, it is important to take note of the differences sizes bring beyond the simple 20% Strength and HP adjustments that all these category shifts possess.
Increased size will lead to a reduction in Dodge and Precision values (meaning it's easier to hit a larger foe and it's tougher for them to hit you.) However, as size goes up, a new Damage Modifier dynamic will increase the damage by 20% for each time the successfully strikes its foe in a combat round. Thus, while a larger unit won't hit it's smaller opponent as often, when it does it packs a wallop.
The overall effect this will have on combat will be pretty much balanced between sizes aside from the differences in Str and HP. However, it will make battles between differing sized units a greater crap shoot for both sides. It makes the larger units rely more on luck to get those hits in but they don't need many to make it count and smaller units will need more rounds to take down a larger foe but if they can keep from being struck their ability to hit easier will eventually wear down their foe. You should be able to see this difference in the combat log quite clearly.
And of course, I plan a number of promotion lines to enable sizes to take advantage of differences in other opponent sizes so that any unit can compensate for its weaknesses or enhance its strengths. This part is still pending further development.
If you're looking for some definition for those sizes, the units as defined should present a good spread of examples but if you spot something that seems to be a poor fit based on other examples, feel free to point them out.
Once this option is fully developed out, I'll edit this post so that it may be utilized for some pedia concept pages. In the meantime, as development furthers during the next cycle, I'll be looking for as much feedback from those playing the option as y'all can offer.
And to those who don't like the option nor the concepts it includes, that, of course, is why it is designed as an option in the first place. I most certainly did NOT want to FORCE this on any players. Some further recent combat mod changes that are not yet isolated into options will eventually be cordoned off into meaningful option sets as well so bear with me on those issues. I believe I'm finding I'll need to develop an 'enhanced animal' option set for example.
Anyhow, I truly hope you enjoy this. Let me know how it goes.
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Hope you enjoy it! I should have one known bug fixed by then...
