[UNIT] Kinda realistic Unit PreReqs

Adds extra PreReq techs for various Units without altering the Tech Tree. I wanted to have some more sensible pre-reqs on certain units while keeping it simple so rather than changing the tech tree this mod adds extra prereq techs to a few units. For example the Battleship now requires Combustion AND Telegraph, but you can still research Telegraph itself without Combustion. You will notice some units are not listed as the Tech they are in was already on the prereq line, such as Stealth Bombers already required Combustion in vanilla. More discussion at the bottom.

Pre-Reqs do Not work for Upgrading Units for some reason. For now I am pretending that the gold for upgrade buys that equipment from somewhere else

Now available on the ModHub under Units/Other

edit to be very clear: All units are in the Same place in the Tech tree and require the Vanilla Tech. In addition the units listed require 1 more tech than vanilla, mostly combustion.

Changes:

Chariot Archer,War Chariot ,War Elephant require: Archery and The Wheel(what were they shooting with?)

Cannon requires: Metallurgy and Chemistry (advances in metallurgy really made cannons viable).

Fighter, Zero requires: Combustion and Flight (were they pedal powered fighters?)
Battleship requires: Combustion and Telegraph(they require Oil prereq unlike destroyers)
Submarine requires: Combustion and Refrig (I don't think these represent Civil War first sub =P)
Carrier requires: Combustion and Flight (I want to find a way to do OR Fission prereqs)
Bomber, B-17 requires: Combustion and Radar
Paratrooper(needs a plane to deliver them), Mechanized Infantry, Mobile Sam, Rocket Artillery(these are self propelled...), Helicopter Gunship, Missile Cruiser: All require: Combustion

Atomic Bomb requires: Flight (combustion is already required for Atomic Theory. Need a plane to deliver the bomb right?)

Nuclear Sub requires: Nuclear Fission
Giant Death Robot requires: Robotics

12/4/10 Update:
Infantry, Foreign Legion, Cavalry, and Anti Tank Gun require: Rifling.
Changed description on Mech infantry, infantry, cavalry to Requires X to BUILD since upgrades are not affected.
Added Readme file with change list


A few ideas I've left out of the mod I would like some input on.

I considered making Horseman require Bronze working to indicate the spears that the graphics have them holding or other weapons they may use requiring metal. Maybe this would also help with early rushes a little bit?

Another thought was Pikeman requiring Bronze working or Ironworking for realism on the pike weapons, but I feared that this would underpower Pikes as you would be going along the bottom line a couple techs already on the way to Longswords... Whatcha think?

Frigates requiring something for their cannons kinda made sense to me but again I feared underpowering them / killing their usage as doing something like Metallurgy AND Chemistry when they are on the same Tier as Navigation seems extreme.

I cannot figure out how to make the new Pre Req Techs appear in the civilopedia listed as a prereq tech. When changing the vanilla standard prereq tech on a unit the game automatically changes the pedia reference. However to add an additional prereq tech I used the TechTypes column from the schema and it apparently does not have the same support for the pedia. Short term solution is I added Text to all of the unit descriptions that reflect the new prereq. Any help on tech icon in pedia under require techs would be appreciated!

My logic on Destroyers was that maybe they could be older steam powered, and for gameplay reasons I really didn't want to require combustion on them. Whatcha think?

What other units did I miss that don't make enough sense on the prereqs?

Offtopic question how do you format the mod description in ModBuddy? I was trying to use html line breaks to make a list but couldnt get it to work, not that there will be room for the complete list anyway.

Lastly as I mentioned in the unit list above I am trying to find a way to do an OR prereq instead of an AND. At this point I am thinking I will have to use an SQL file and LUA to either make a new column for ORprereqs then logic for using it in LUA. Alternatively I was wondering if it is possible to use an event to remove the TechType prereq. For example when Nuclear Fission is researched the Combustion techtype is removed from Carriers effectively allowing Carriers to be built without combustion upon researching Fission. Any help appreciated again!

Ok so thanks for reading, suggestions ideas critiques all welcome

These are some good suggestions, thanks for taking the time to do this. I think the idea of making Carriers require Combustion OR Fission is interesting, but it may be more trouble than it's worth. Can you really imagine someone designing a nuclear drive train without ever having discovered internal combustion? I suppose you can picture a direct line from steam power to nuclear without internal combustion (maybe in a world without a lot of oil), but in that case, why not make nuclear battleships, too? If a civ is going to be pursuing nuclear power as the only successor to steam power then they'd probably use it to power anything big enough hold a reactor.
Now, another interesting "OR" solution would be to have carriers and battleships require either oil or uranium.
The LUA might work, but you also might want to wait until the DLLs are released. I'm sure someone will come up with a generic OR solution for the tech tree in C++.

kurtkage said:

What other units did I miss that don't make enough sense on the prereqs?

Click to expand...

Cavalry / Rifling ?

kurtkage said:

Offtopic question how do you format the mod description in ModBuddy? I was trying to use html line breaks to make a list but couldnt get it to work, not that there will be room for the complete list anyway.

Click to expand...

use [NEWLINE]

and for a list, you can use something like that before each line : [NEWLINE][ICON_BULLET]

12/4 update:
Added readme file with change list.
Infantry(woops oversight there!), Foreign Legion, Cavalry, and Anti Tank Gun require Rifling.
Changed description on Mech infantry, infantry, cavalry to Requires rifling to BUILD since upgrades are not affected.

Thanks for the replies, I've been moving and haven't had alot of time but that is all done now so back to more civvin

Now, another interesting "OR" solution would be to have carriers and battleships require either oil or uranium.

Click to expand...

This is more what I was going for as it wouldn't make sense to have the OR prereq on Fission but still require Oil for the Carrier anyway doh lol. However I dunno that it would be worth a uranium for a carrier unless you were strapped for oil? I liked your logic path on the steam power to nuclear though I had to read it again before I got what you were saying on battleships I'm a couple beers into a civ game at this point hehe. edit: it would be cool to have a uranium carrier to have extra movement to reflect the insane fuel range of nuclear powered carriers

Cavalry / Rifling ?

Click to expand...

Thanks for the suggestion, I think that makes sense and it was that way in prior civ iterations. Another option would be gunpowder as they may not be using rifles exclusively but then that could seem more like Dragoons.

Thanks for the info on the description newline and bullets, I've been searching for a good list of everything that can be used in there but haven't had any luck.

I forgot to mention in my OP that in testing I noticed that Upgrading Units is not affected by the techtypes pre-req. This sucks a little but I don't know an easy way to fix it. For now I am imagining that the Gold cost for upgrading is spent on some other source to acquire the equipment =P

I am still torn on the Frigate option. Now I am thinking instead of doing the more realistic Chem+metallurgy+navigation I will just do Gunpowder+navigation. Thoughts?

Good job on getting this mod going! Can't believe the lack of pre-reqs and the lumping of so many 'things' into so few techs. I personally would prefer more techs doing fewer things, but researched at a more frequent rate.....keeps the rewards coming quicker -- even if they're smaller.

Anyways....

I am still torn on the Frigate option....Thoughts?

Click to expand...

I suggest Frigates requiring Nav + Gunpowder. I think that would fit the general historical time-frame within which "frigate" came to be a word describing a certain breed of 17th century warships.

As an aside, I sorta wish the game would implement certain unit-specific combat bonuses with the discovery of additional techs. For example, "all frigates receive +1 combat strength with discovery of metallurgy."