Proposition
Currently within the game, attaching a Great General to a unit gives the "Leader" promotion in the XML code and turns them into a Warlord. The new warlord unit gains the ability to upgrade for free, 20 xp, and access to unique promotions. The original concept sounds great, but unfortunately, warlords are usually just used as lowly, unpromoted medic units because of their vulnerability.
What if GG's were modded so that they have extremely high survivability while attacking (high withdrawal chance), and a weaker defense while being attacked by enemies (so they aren't killed while defending a stack and are low priority to defend)? Also, I assume most players reload a save anyway if they happen to lose their warlord in battle which had good victory odds.
My inspiration comes from the game Warcraft III, where the heroes can always resurrect again at their altars after dying. If they didn't function this way, the game wouldn't be the same; nor would it be fun. Players would camp heroes in towns and only kill "creeps" with them to build up their xp. They also probably wouldn't be so bold with them and send them out into battle with their forces until they were much stronger. Who knows, maybe they'd be even MORE cautious with them after leveling them up because it would be an even greater loss to have one die.
I really dislike the idea of making warlords merely for medics in the field. I want them to charge into battle. But currently, losing them is too costly and can happen easily.
If they could withdraw from combat all the time, they'd be able to attack fearlessly. If they also had low defensive capabilities, they'd be able to hide behind units within the unit stack they're in and survive during attacks.
With this change, they wouldn't be able to kill everything in sight. Their health would eventually decrease to the point of making them much less useful. You would just now have the chance to retreat with them and heal them up for another battle.
They also wouldn't be indestructible. To destroy the warlord, you'd just simply obliterate the unit stack it's in or conquer the city it resides in. It would also make killing a warlord give a greater sense of satisfaction and accomplishment.
Also, with those worried about the warlord losing its defensive capabilities, a good offense can also be a good defense. A warlord hanging out in a city with other defenders can attack enemies and weaken/kill them before they invade. As long as the warlord has a good amount of other units protecting it.
Implementation
The attack survivability is easy. A withdrawal chance of 100% can be added when the GG attaches to the unit as a Warlord. I think there's a cap at 90%, but I tested it a bit within the worldbuilder and the warlord always had a chance to withdraw; is this correct? Even if it was 90%, that's still a nice survivability chance higher than 90%.
However, weakening its defensive capabilities seems more difficult and is beyond my knowledge of modding the XML.
There are 3 approaches that I can think of:
- To simply mod the Leader promotion to give -80% terrain/feature defense to all the different terrain/features. However, this approach isn't very desirable and creates an ugly, long list within the hover text.
- Not sure if it's possible, but if the unit can just receive a -80% (or more?) penalty when defending in general (against everything), that would work nicely. This way, the Warlord would probably be least priority when defending a stack of units being attacked. Though, at the same time, he'll still be vulnerable to death if there aren't enough units defending him or the they all get whittled away.
- There is currently an "onlydefend" boolean tag in the XML. Can an "onlyattack" tag be created? Also, if this was created, can the unit still be destroyed if it's programmed to never defend? I really don't want indestructible, lone warlords wandering around, lol. I also don't want indestructible warlords sitting in cities making them unconquerable. I'm hoping that by removing their chance to defend they can still be destroyed; similar to how settlers and workers are destroyed (minus gaining a worker).
Repercussions
Also, because of the high survivablity while attacking, I think it'd be best to remove siege units from the list of available units which can gain a warlord. The only other problem I can think of is naval units with collateral damage. Also, the Tactics promotion would have to be altered or removed.
What do you guys think?