Unit Design

Airight. You sold me on the Black Arcs spawning slaves.
 
Sounds good to me Orlanth.

*pulls out whip*

So lets talk about python...
 
So lets talk about python...

why? talking about that kind of thing just complicates matters. just decide on a mechanic and then those that can use python can work out how to get it to work. talking about it just makes it more confusing. :p
 
why? talking about that kind of thing just complicates matters. just decide on a mechanic and then those that can use python can work out how to get it to work. talking about it just makes it more confusing. :p

Okay okay you are right. I think we can easily use XML for many many things we want anywho with minor python work.

So the slavery discussion is over for now. I think hatred should be used in the mod because as PL said it is important, as is fear. Hatred allows rerolls to hit (iirc, or is it reroll to wound, or extra attack) and Fear is, well fear! Should an elf unit scatter all the gobboes in a stack after killing a unit, not sure. Psychology is pretty powerful in warhammer. What about frenzy? I could see a bonus to attack with a penalty to defense but this could suck if randomly applied (a player would take advantage of the attack bonus but would the AI?)

I hate it when crazed units run around because they really don't do much even though the promo can be removed after combat. Maybe with the increase barbarian spawns I believe you guys want to add through events could help alleviate the time wasted but I am not sure.
 
Psychology (the complex edition):

Leadership: a new thing that will be difficult to code in. possibly have to find some way around it or get someone to code it in for us. or ignore it alltogether). leadership should be a value from 1-10
General Psychology tests: generate a random number between 1 and 12, if the number is less than the highest leadership value in the tile the psychology test is passed. if the test is passed they get a 'Courageous' promotion makign them immune to fear but has a 15% chance of wearing off each turn. if the test is failed it gets the 'Fleeing' promotion which gives +50% withdrawl chance and is reduced to 33% of its total health, cannot heal and can only defend until the unit rallies.
Rallying: each turn units have a chance to rally (say 80%) where they loose the 'Fleeing' promotion
Panic: Units attacked by fear and terror causing units panic and must take a leadership test.
Fear: Unit causes enemies not immune to fear to panic and must take a leadership test.
Terror: like Fear but ignores the immune to Fear bonus. only does not work agaisn units immune to terror and immune to psychology.
Stupidity: Units with the 'stupid' promotion have a 5% chance every turn of gaining the 'suffering from stupidity' promotion which: makes them unnable to attack, only able to defend and (possibly?) cause them to randomly move (probably not as its not fun). 'suffering from stupidity' has a 80% chance of wearing off each turn, is lost after combat.
Frenzy: units with the 'frenzy' promotion have a 15% chance every turn ove gaining the 'frenzied' promotion: +1 attack, -1 defence, +1 move, Blitz, -100% withdrawal. and has an 80% chance of being removed each turn, is lost after combat.
Hatred: Unit gets +15% strength against hated foes.
Stubborn: Unit automatically gets a leadership of 10, -100% withdrawl chance.

Psychology (for dummies):

Fear: Unit causes enemies not immune to fear to get -15% combat strength at the start of combat, and to lose the penalty when combat is over.
Terror: like Fear but ignores the immune to Fear bonus. only does not work agaisn units immune to terror and immune to psychology. -30% combat strength to attacked enemies at the start of combat, and they lose the penalty when combat is over.
Stupidity: Units with the 'stupid' promotion have a 5% chance every turn of gaining the 'suffering from stupidity' promotion which: makes them unnable to attack, only able to defend and (possibly?) cause them to randomly move (probably not as its not fun). 'suffering from stupidity' has a 80% chance of wearing off each turn, is lost after combat.
Frenzy: units with the 'frenzy' promotion have a 15% chance every turn ove gaining the 'frenzied' promotion: +1 attack, -1 defence, +1 move, Blitz, -100% withdrawal. and has an 80% chance of being removed each turn, is lost after combat.
Hatred: Unit gets +15% strength against hated foes.
Stubborn: Unit immune to fear, -100% withdrawl chance.
Fear of ...: units afraid of a certain unit (ie goblins) get -15% stength when fighting those units.
 
There's like 3 topics there.

deadliver said:
I think hatred should be used in the mod because as PL said it is important, as is fear. Hatred allows rerolls to hit (iirc, or is it reroll to wound, or extra attack)
Hatred is a good idea. I like the attack bonus while losing defense. Forces you to use it wisely. And it definitely adds more to the Druchii/Asur feud.


deadliver said:
and Fear is, well fear! Should an elf unit scatter all the gobboes in a stack after killing a unit, not sure.
As for fear, we deifinitely should have fear attached (in some form) to the darker magics, like Dark Magic, Necromancy, Grey Magic, and Shadow Magic. And certain powerful units like maybe Cold Ones Knights or Necromancers.

deadliver said:
What about frenzy? I could see a bonus to attack with a penalty to defense but this could suck if randomly applied (a player would take advantage of the attack bonus but would the AI?)
Quite frankly, I thought part of the point of frenzy would that you can NOT control it. It's kinda like the the Crazed promotion in FF. You have NO control over it. Your lunatics just go nuts. But with both of these promotions, you DO get a nice attack bonus. I think a 60% bonus like Enraged has is too much. But something like a +40% attack with a -30% defense would be good.
 
Thanks for the guide. I like the simple versions of hatred and fear especially. I don't think we should include any psych effects that randomize movement and attacking unless we are sure the AI controlling the unit understands that frenzied units would attack available enemy units instead of running around.

If we could perfect the frenzy onset mechanic this would be great. I like the idea of leadership because of this. Maybe we could use an effect promo to grant frenzy if the unit is adjacent to an enemy unit/stack so the frenzy attack would be guaranteed?

edit: rlaf, regarding frenzy I was thinking it would only apply when units are adjacent (unless line of sight is an option) so that the dumb AI could figure out it should attack nearby enemies instead of acting like crazed where it can run around. The AI should want to end frenzy by attacking, because that is what a player would do if the frenzy effect allowed control over the unit.
 
Psychic_Llamas said:
Psychology (the complex edition):

Leadership: a new thing that will be difficult to code in. possibly have to find some way around it or get someone to code it in for us. or ignore it alltogether). leadership should be a value from 1-10
General Psychology tests: generate a random number between 1 and 12, if the number is less than the highest leadership value in the tile the psychology test is passed. if the test is passed they get a 'Courageous' promotion makign them immune to fear but has a 15% chance of wearing off each turn. if the test is failed it gets the 'Fleeing' promotion which gives +50% withdrawl chance and is reduced to 33% of its total health, cannot heal and can only defend until the unit rallies.
Rallying: each turn units have a chance to rally (say 80%) where they loose the 'Fleeing' promotion
Panic: Units attacked by fear and terror causing units panic and must take a leadership test.
Fear: Unit causes enemies not immune to fear to panic and must take a leadership test.
Terror: like Fear but ignores the immune to Fear bonus. only does not work agaisn units immune to terror and immune to psychology.
Stupidity: Units with the 'stupid' promotion have a 5% chance every turn of gaining the 'suffering from stupidity' promotion which: makes them unnable to attack, only able to defend and (possibly?) cause them to randomly move (probably not as its not fun). 'suffering from stupidity' has a 80% chance of wearing off each turn, is lost after combat.
Frenzy: units with the 'frenzy' promotion have a 15% chance every turn ove gaining the 'frenzied' promotion: +1 attack, -1 defence, +1 move, Blitz, -100% withdrawal. and has an 80% chance of being removed each turn, is lost after combat.
Hatred: Unit gets +15% strength against hated foes.
Stubborn: Unit automatically gets a leadership of 10, -100% withdrawl chance.
I like all these.


Psychic_Llamas said:
Fear of ...: units afraid of a certain unit (ie goblins) get -15% stength when fighting those units.
And this.




I know it'll be more python work. But I ain't gonna lie, it'll be cooler. :cool: Besides, it's a mechanic that could really add some randomness to the Battlefield. You'd have learn to work with the unexpected more.
 
I like all these.


And this.




I know it'll be more python work. But I ain't gonna lie, it'll be cooler. :cool: Besides, it's a mechanic that could really add some randomness to the Battlefield. You'd have learn to work with the unexpected more.

if the mechanics can be made easy to understand (writing is the easy part, we shouldn't outpace it. Descriptions make all the difference) then there is an element of chance that the player KNOWS may come up when they put their units into a situation.

Random bonuses are fun while random death and hikes across the mountains are not. Looking at promotion xml there is no way to superimpose a different unit ai. Would this be easy in python?
 
for now maybe stick to straightforward stuff (fast workers that die on completion plus city hammer sacrifice ability) and add others later if needed.

I'm happy to stick with these for now, but the problem is that neither of these actually have any synergy with the slavery civic.

The slave expedition on the ark sounds good, but this is just a minor flavor effect.
 
Let me give my anti-hatred/feared race mechanic rant once more.
As far as balance goes, this is just a terrible, terrible idea. If for eg elves get an automatic bonus against all goblins, then the goblin race just automatically gets screwed when fighting elves. Thats not fun.
Balance has some kind of rock paper scissors aspect. If you have cavalry and they have spears as a counter, then you can get swords to counter their spears.
There is no rock paper scissors in these hatred/feared mechanics; if you're goblins and you're fighting an elf player, they just get a big bonus against you, and you have no counter. Thats not balance, or fun.

I am STRONGLY opposed to trying to create a new Leadership mechanic.
This is exactly the typical fail of Warhammer mods and pc games; trying to adapt tabletop mechanics too closely. Do not try to mimic tabletop leadership break/rally tests!!! The civ engine can't do it.
I see no real design gain here at all, merely complex confusion that will be very hard for the player to handle, and frustrating to deal with.

We have talked before many times about fear and terror.
My suggestions is for fear to be a 15% combat strength bonus against units that are not immune to fear (undead, demons, golems/elementals, immune to fear units, non-living siege units, etc.).
Terror means that any unit not immune to fear that attacks the unit with terror have a 35% chance of being unable to attack (and having their movement wasted) when they try to attack, and possibly give the scatter effect when attacking.
I'm open to alternatives, but these seem likely to work.

This isn't tabletop, players aren't making actual dierolls, leadership tests would just be incredibly confusing.

As for frenzy; this is ok and similar to what we have discussed before. Losing control of your unit (like FFH lunatics) is really just not fun. I stopped building Lunatics after they made that change in FFH, because they just werent' fun anymore (or very useful) when you couldn't control them.
 
Stupidity: Units with the 'stupid' promotion have a 5% chance every turn of gaining the 'suffering from stupidity' promotion which: makes them unnable to attack, only able to defend and (possibly?) cause them to randomly move (probably not as its not fun). 'suffering from stupidity' has a 80% chance of wearing off each turn, is lost after combat.
Having a small chance per turn of standing around in a daze sounds fine; in FF, we can use a Stupid promotion with
# <iPromotionRandomApplyChance> - Controls the probability of the promotion listed in PromotionRandomApply (Fair Winds, Enraged) being applied each turn
# <iPromotionRandomApplyChance> - Percent Chance per turn that the promotion listed in RandomApply will actually be applied
to give 5% chance per turn of granting temporary Dazed effect promo with the above effects.

Fear/Terror/Panic
The core mechanic in WH is that units combating a Feared enemy have a chance to panic and rout in terror, fleeing the battlefield and becoming extremely vulnerable to attack from the rear. Adding yet another vanilla bump to overall Strength is just not that satisfying or interesting for gameplay, it becomes effectively just another Iron Weapons or Combat I. Using a small chance of unable to attack and getting the scatter effect is a good suggestion. We could keep it simple, flavorful, and non-paralyzing by having a small (10%) chance when attacking a Feared enemy to instead panic and gain the Routed promo as below.
Routed: 0 moves, -50% defense, no First Strikes, 80% chance of wearing off per turn.
Units with Terror increase the chance of being Routed to 35%, or whatever playtests well. The base chance of Fear/Terror could be modified by a drastically simplified Leadership as below.

Leadership:
Yeah its really not worth trying to implement a complex 1-10 python system; but we could get the gist of the brave and cowardly units in WH with a few simple promos representing units that have relatively greater or lower leadership/cohesion.
Cowardly: Double chance to be Routed on Fear and Terror checks. +5% Withdrawal Chance. (Skaven and Goblins start with this.)
Brave: Immune to Fear, half chance to be routed on Terror checks. (Bretonnian knights, other elite units, etc). Could be purchasable with experience as well as a free promo for appropriate units.
Stubborn: -100% withdrawal chance, immune to Fear and Terror checks. (Ogres, Trolls, etc)

Then we could easily have Hero leadership effects in the vein of WH Heroes like we'd already planned; Commander effects that grant temporary Promotions like Brave to nearby units under their command.

Racial Hatred/Fear
As far as strategic-level Civ4 gameplay I agree with Ahriman that having a permanent significant strength advantage between races would prob just be frustrating for the player. We could keep it playable/flavorful by using the above Fear check (or immunity for Hatred, with a very limited strength bonus.)

Racial Hatred (eg, Hates Elves) : In combat with Elves, has +5% Strength, -100% Withdrawal chance, Immune to Psychology
Racial Fear (eg, Fears Elves) : In combat with Elves, make Fear check when attacking or be Routed as above.

Frenzy:
we can use the Enraged effect from Fall Further, and tweak as needed with playtesting.
 
I don't.
Adding yet another vanilla bump to overall Strength is just not that satisfying or interesting for gameplay, it becomes effectively just another Iron Weapons or Combat I

The difference is that it is a bump only vs normal living units, but that doesn't apply when fighting undead, golems, mindless units, demons, etc.
So it has a distinction, but it is still very simple, and its effects are displayed in in-game combat odds calculators.
If you want to enhance the distinction, make cause fear give -10% strength, and +25% strength vs units not immune to fear.

Your design for fear and terror just has terror as a stronger version of fear.
I prefer to make them different, and then units can get one or other or both as appropriate.

Having your turn wasted in an attack is penalty enough for attacking a terrifying unit, they don't need an extra hold promotion as well. There is no need for a routed promotion.
We already get the design effect; terror is a useful defensive promotion that makes a unit hard to kill, particularly on big nasty units like dragons.
If you like, in addition to being unable to attack, have the units take 5% damage.

And the whole leadership thing seems like needless complexity. You're trying to graft a tactical tabletop mechanic into the strategic civ engine, where it really doesn't fit, just for the sake of having a mechanic with the same name. Just drop leadership, it isn't fun here and doesn't really add anything. We already have weak and cowardly skaven and goblins with lower strength but withdraw chances.

Immune to fear when fighting only against race X seems complex and unnecessary as well.

Remember Kael's rule 1:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=173061
"Is it needed? Would it be missed if it was taken out? Is it functionaly unique? If the answer to these is no, it should be considered for removal."

What do you get from routing that is valuable that you don't already get from failing to attack?
What do you get from leadership that can't be done with strength modifiers and withdraw chances?
 
edit: rlaf, regarding frenzy I was thinking it would only apply when units are adjacent (unless line of sight is an option) so that the dumb AI could figure out it should attack nearby enemies instead of acting like crazed where it can run around. The AI should want to end frenzy by attacking, because that is what a player would do if the frenzy effect allowed control over the unit.

That would be good. Plus, then the human can control it without us being flooded with people saying, "ZOMG! I HATE FRENZY! MY UNITS WON'T STOP DOING IT!" or something like that.
 
And, for the record, I also like Orlanth's ideas.
 
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