C2C Combat Mod Introduction - Step I (SubCombat Classes)

@Thunderbrd

There are some Throwing units you did not include ...

- Kanembu Warrior (Kanem-Bornu)
- Menalamba (Merina)
- Holkan (Mayan)
- Chakram ( Mugahal)
- Huron Mantlet (Huron)

Also I am not sure about these since they are gunpowder but also throw things.

- Arsonist
- Grenadier

Ok... thanks for that first list there. I would not have known if they should've been or not as I've never seen them in the game.

The Grenadier I did set to throwing AND gun as I'm sure grenadiers don't ONLY have grenades. The arsonist I'm not sure what I did. I THINK they are set, oddly enough, as a gun unit. But we'll have flame wielding soon and I'm thinking melee/throwing or simply throwing might be good for them. Then we give them the flame wielding class and go from there.

Thanks again... I'll review those and I'll take another look at the Criminal line in light of our discussions on that.

@Thunderbrd

Something seems very wrong with your Combatants Combat Class. Many units are getting promotions they should not be getting. Such as siege units are getting all sorts of promotions not ment for them (ex. mainly the terrain ones).

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Also the Medevac Dropship should have Helicopter Combat class on it too so Healcare/Civilian/Helicopter

What happened to the basic Melee promo now that the Throwing promo has been put in?

Why can't an Obsidian Axe not have a melee promo available but does have the Throwing available right away?

Is this the prelude to the equipment stuff?

JosEPh

Hydromancerx said:

@Thunderbrd

Something seems very wrong with your Combatants Combat Class. Many units are getting promotions they should not be getting. Such as siege units are getting all sorts of promotions not ment for them (ex. mainly the terrain ones).

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I did open up some access there for Siege, and in some cases other units, since I've always believed it was erroneous that they have been SO restricted. That said, in doing so, I AM inviting this sort of feedback and some discussion on what they should/should not have access to and some rationale behind why. Doesn't mean I'm not happy to revert some changes but I'd like to discuss them as they arise so we can have it well thought out since I feel that in a lot of ways our access issues have been somewhat arbitrarily assigned - this I also feel is a lot to do with RoM/AND leftovers.

I can understand early siege not having access to extra movement on terrains... perhaps that should be the domain of wheeled or tracked CCs that then get added as subcombats to the more advanced Siege weapons that would also logically be wheeled or tracked as well.

But why should siege weapons be unable to protect themselves against terrain damage like any other unit?

Perhaps Siege should gain their own unique terrain promos then?

By all means, please bring up any other access issues you feel don't sit right and we'll hammer it out. Fair 'nuff?

Also the Medevac Dropship should have Helicopter Combat class on it too so Healcare/Civilian/Helicopter

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Cool... I'll get that done today then.

JosEPh_II said:

What happened to the basic Melee promo now that the Throwing promo has been put in?

Why can't an Obsidian Axe not have a melee promo available but does have the Throwing available right away?

Is this the prelude to the equipment stuff?

JosEPh

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The first Sidestep promo (anti-throwing) is available at Nomadic Lifestyle. The first Shock promo (anti-melee) is available at Stone Tools - there's a bit of a delay there over the first Sidestep tech prereq. However, an Obsidian Axe is a ways past that so I really couldn't say why you can't seem to gain access there. All melee units should have access to the Shock promo line. And I've gone in and confirmed that the Obsidian Axe unit is denoted as a Melee unit.

Both Shock and Sidestep have the same promo prereqs, with the exception of an OR prereq of Drill (which I'll update so that Sidestep also has an OR prereq of Drill as well.) Perhaps that has something to do with it somehow?

Is this the prelude to Equipment? It's an early litmus/stress test with subcombat and promo access issues. Checking to make sure my thinking is accurate with things and that the coding is all working as intended. These particular new combat classes don't DIRECTLY affect equipments but throwing most definately becomes easier to work with on a generalized basis this way. There's a number of units that could not really find any harmony with Archer nor Melee CCs because they really were something else entirely, Throwing. This will make things easier to work with for equipments but its a valid move in and of itself, from a number of strategic angles and combat mod applications.

@Hydro:
- Chakram ( Mugahal): I found only a hero in any kind of relation to these terms, using BONUS_MUGHAL for a search. Mugahal and Chakram did not come up in the xml anywhere. That hero is an Archer SubCombat... I presume its the one that should be throwing?

- Huron Mantlet (Huron): This is listed as a siege weapon and has some bombardment ability and upgrades to a Battering Ram. Should it maintain those two factors while being changed to a Throwing unit or should we adjust it a bit? Perhaps it should upgrade to a Javelineer, lose its bombard ability, and enhance its anti-archery a bit?

Please do add these changes to the Huron Mantlet. They are really in need of a boost of any kind.

JosEPh

Well... the question is WHAT changes? Should it stay as a Siege unit AND a Throwing unit? That would certainly make it interesting... I did change it to a Throwing unit but the jury is still out on any stat adjustments.

@Thunderbrd

1. Hmm you do have a point perhaps the siege units should get some more types of promotions. I always thought it was balance problem but if you think siege units should get those types of promotions then lets do it!

2. Oops! The Chakram (Mugahal) is planned but not implemented. My bad. Its becuase we never found graphics for it.



3. Huron Mantlet (Huron) is basically a huge shield with tomahawks being thrown from behind the shield. As the AOE3 wiki says ...

(Huron Mantlet)

The Huron mantlet has no bonuses versus enemy units, it does however have a good siege attack and outstanding durability versus enemy ranged units. It's usefulness is diminished versus melee cavalry and infantry. Huge numbers of mantlets can be trained with the appropriate upgrade and possession of more than one trading post site.

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There was also the ...

(Iroquois Mantlet)

The Mantlet is an infantry unit with a strong attack, plenty of hitpoints, good range and decent resistance to damage. Because a Mantlet can withstand enemy fire, its good at attacking towers and other buildings. It does damage at range. Therefore, its wise to maintain this range whenever possible. Mantlets can be upgraded to Champion.

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Thus our version is a mixture of both being ranged and siege.

Well... in reading all you posted about the Manlet, I'd have to suggest actually removing the siege portion. BUT we make it an absolute Archery killer. Throwing weapons are already primarily anti-archery but this takes it to a whole new level with that huge shield. Not only should that be represented eventually as an equipment but it would provide a huge amount of cover. So I'm going to suggest we take out the siege and insert +100% against archery all total. (Maybe -25% vs Melee for balance considering the shield makes them a bit vulnerable in a straight fight where it's unwieldy and must be either abandoned in such close quarters, which they are not so trained for, or really reduces their capacity.)

What do you think?

I also noticed that many of our throwing class units no longer being archers cannot utilize archer bombard (which is correct imo) but still show some ability in it on their help popup so apparently there's some tags in use supporting archer bombards that I'll have to go in and remove.

I would take T-Brds suggestions in a heartbeat for the Mantlet. Good vs Archers and early cities but poor against trained melee infantry. Wasn't the mantlet like the Iroquios a 2 man team?

JosEPh

As I wait for Hydro's feedback on the Manlet, I want to bring up another interesting point on SubCombats: Chariots and Wagons.

I think it would be very interesting if we gave them the Wheeled CC as a subcombat. See how it goes... I don't think any unique or new promos would be accessed by or against them at the moment but we could then add some that could make for some improved interesting interactions with those units.

I've also got some ideas coming together for Civilian only promo lines but some brainstorming from others could be helpful. I'm thinking something along the lines of:
Offroad Traveller Each step adds another terrain or feature or two where the unit moves at twice the speed.

Hustle Each step adds additional movement along all routes.

Positive Influence Each step: -1 Crime, Cities 5% less likely to revolt (I believe this means going into anarchy due to culture and unhappiness mostly) Builds to the third level where the unit brings +1 Happiness (we have a tag for this) to any city the unit is in.

Adjust the Paramedic line to give -1 Disease at each step too...

Cleanup -1 Air and -1 Water Pollution

And we could get more creative from there with new tag applications. The idea here would be 'minor' promotions that create passive benefits that make it so that the Civilian units are more useful to have hanging around but not so useful that its worth spamming tons of them as the problems are more effectively (in terms of the financial impact of maintaining all those units) dealt with by creating units specifically for that purpose.

One tag I'd like to do for that:
<iRebuildRateModifier> which would improve any city the unit is in by making that city recover any lost defense value by this amount % faster (or slower).

Just some thoughts. The Hustle line would then also go and be applied to Wheeled units for an early effect for chariots and wagons.

Thunderbrd said:

Well... in reading all you posted about the Manlet, I'd have to suggest actually removing the siege portion. BUT we make it an absolute Archery killer. Throwing weapons are already primarily anti-archery but this takes it to a whole new level with that huge shield. Not only should that be represented eventually as an equipment but it would provide a huge amount of cover. So I'm going to suggest we take out the siege and insert +100% against archery all total. (Maybe -25% vs Melee for balance considering the shield makes them a bit vulnerable in a straight fight where it's unwieldy and must be either abandoned in such close quarters, which they are not so trained for, or really reduces their capacity.)

What do you think?

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I like it. Sounds good.

@ the Team (Primarily Hydro and Koshling):

When going to review the stats on the Manlet I did a more thorough review of the whole throwing line (minus any that may be in a module which I'll tweak along the same lines if this is acceptable to y'all.)

I attached an Excel file that expresses the changes I'd like to implement. This would include the first Combat Mod tag application beyond SubCombats - Early Withdrawal.

I've expressed the vision I have for this line through this file but there's a few tags that emerged that already obviously need some review - particularly the AI tags. I'd like some feedback or suggestions on how to get those a bit more streamlined into something rational as they obviously are not at this time.

Anyhow, please take a look and let me know what you think. All this is ready to go in a copied UnitInfos.xml file that can be immediately applied if you find it pleasing. You should be able to take note of the patterns I'm trying to adhere to along the progression of the line. And the evolving use and application of this line should be apparent as well.

EDIT: Updated the file to what just got committed to the dll.

Thunderbrd said:

@ the Team (Primarily Hydro and Koshling):

When going to review the stats on the Manlet I did a more thorough review of the whole throwing line (minus any that may be in a module which I'll tweak along the same lines if this is acceptable to y'all.)

I attached an Excel file that expresses the changes I'd like to implement. This would include the first Combat Mod tag application beyond SubCombats - Early Withdrawal.

I've expressed the vision I have for this line through this file but there's a few tags that emerged that already obviously need some review - particularly the AI tags. I'd like some feedback or suggestions on how to get those a bit more streamlined into something rational as they obviously are not at this time.

Anyhow, please take a look and let me know what you think. All this is ready to go in a copied UnitInfos.xml file that can be immediately applied if you find it pleasing. You should be able to take note of the patterns I'm trying to adhere to along the progression of the line. And the evolving use and application of this line should be apparent as well.

EDIT: I noticed after posting this that the Arsonist has a iBombard of 5... very interesting. Should the Grenadiers beyond the Arsonist gain this as well? Should that increase at some rate or stay at that 5?

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Which tags are you worried about in this regard? As far as I can see early withdrawal just factors into the withdrawal calculation (go figure!) which is already accounted for in the odds calculation (I think - can't guarantee that code is bug-free, but it's there at least). That should mean the AI already evaluates it correctly at combat-time. That just leaves how the AI evaluates (or doesn't) it when determining the values of units to be built. If it's being applied reasonably uniformly to whole lines of units it likely won't matter if the AI doesn't take account of it in deciding what to build (because its likely to be comparable on the likely alternatives anyway so cancel out), but the place AI code would be needed if we wanted to do it properly would be in CvPlayer::AI_unitValue() and possibly CvPlayerAI::AI_promotionValue(). Looking at these, it looks like you already added evaluation when you made your initial combat mod changes, so it all looks catered for to me.

Koshling said:

Which tags are you worried about in this regard? As far as I can see early withdrawal just factors into the withdrawal calculation (go figure!) which is already accounted for in the odds calculation (I think - can't guarantee that code is bug-free, but it's there at least). That should mean the AI already evaluates it correctly at combat-time. That just leaves how the AI evaluates (or doesn't) it when determining the values of units to be built. If it's being applied reasonably uniformly to whole lines of units it likely won't matter if the AI doesn't take account of it in deciding what to build (because its likely to be comparable on the likely alternatives anyway so cancel out), but the place AI code would be needed if we wanted to do it properly would be in CvPlayer::AI_unitValue() and possibly CvPlayerAI::AI_promotionValue(). Looking at these, it looks like you already added evaluation when you made your initial combat mod changes, so it all looks catered for to me.

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Cool to know that. The tags I was asking you about mostly are the ones on the pink lines in the document, iConscription: 4, iCultureGarrison: 4, iAsset: 1, and iPower: 1. Perhaps not all AI purposed tags but as you can see in the document, they do not maintain any kind of consistency between unit forms and are all over the place. I suppose I may have to do some research as to what exactly they do... I was hoping someone may have some insight.

I was also asking you about the Unit AI settings, if you felt those were appropriate. The unit ai's listed in the document, particularly the secondary AI's seem to be all over the place as well. I was wondering if you could share some opinions on those applications and a deeper understanding of their meaning exactly.

Thunderbrd said:

The tags I was asking you about mostly are the ones on the pink lines in the document, iConscription: 4, iCultureGarrison: 4, iAsset: 1, and iPower: 1.

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Are you talking about this??

iConscription = If the value is above 0, this Unit is eligible for drafting. The number sets the priority by which the units will be drafted, if a city can train more than one draftable Unit type. The Unit type with the highest value is always drafted.

iCultureGarrison = The suppresion value of a unit while garrisoned in a rebelling city

iAsset = How much the Unit contributes toward your score. There may be some scaling factor

iPower = Used by the AI to determine relative powers of players

@Thunderbrd

Looking over your documents I was not sure which were changed since I don't recall the original state of the units.

EDIT: I noticed after posting this that the Arsonist has a iBombard of 5... very interesting. Should the Grenadiers beyond the Arsonist gain this as well? Should that increase at some rate or stay at that 5?

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It probably would be good to keep constancy. In AOE3 their Grenaders were able to do building damage too. Which is our equivalent of city siege.

strategyonly said:

Are you talking about this??

iConscription = If the value is above 0, this Unit is eligible for drafting. The number sets the priority by which the units will be drafted, if a city can train more than one draftable Unit type. The Unit type with the highest value is always drafted.

iCultureGarrison = The suppresion value of a unit while garrisoned in a rebelling city

iAsset = How much the Unit contributes toward your score. There may be some scaling factor

iPower = Used by the AI to determine relative powers of players

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Ok, that pretty much confirms everything I thought those meant. I'll tweak those to make them grow with the lines more appropriately then - and we'll see if it helps.

Hydromancerx said:

@Thunderbrd

Looking over your documents I was not sure which were changed since I don't recall the original state of the units.

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Ok. I have an original copy of the units xml file(s) so what I'd like to do then is go ahead and make these changes and let you experience them in game. I just did a playtest myself and the new dynamics of these units makes them hella fun imo... I was having a hard time closing out the game tbh! Once the changes are in place, try starting a new game and playing around with stone throwers and you'll see what I mean.

If you don't like the changes, we can either revert to the old ones or we can find some solutions to what it is that you specifically don't like, fair 'nuff?

Note: with these changes, I HIGHLY suggest playing with Defensive Withdraw ON!

It probably would be good to keep constancy. In AOE3 their Grenaders were able to do building damage too. Which is our equivalent of city siege.

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Yeah, I compared the values given to units more dedicated to that purpose and they don't even come close to measuring up to catapults so in keeping with the throwing line's 'many minor effects, all of which making rational sense' theme, I think it would be good to include it on Grenadiers and Modern Grenadiers as well with a little bit of increase with each step.

Ok, I updated my document and the new version is available in the post it was originally uploaded here (up the page a bit). This document includes all the changes that just went in. I have copies of the original if they are not suitable.