Dune Wars 1.9.4 Patch Feedback

That's Civ4 combat odds for you, the only real difference between this and the normal land combat is that there is a max rounds, no first strikes, and we're clamping the damage in a way that gives an artificial advantage to the interceptor and reduces the chance of anyone dying in the slotted number of rounds.

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Well, I guess I have in mind land combat where equal odds means 50% chance of death.
Air combat with ground interception is different, because only the air unit gets damaged.
I assume air combat with air interception is the same as ground combat, except for the cap on the number of rounds?
Or am I missing something really obvious here; with your changes, will ground units that intercept air units take damage?

If we make the interceptor damage always 15, and just let the combat ratio affect the odds of getting hits, we'll have a much smoother transition.

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This seems reasonable.
We can also think about tuning the strength modifier vs air units of the various interception units.
One of the problems with the current system is that a unit that is 12 + 100% really gets very little extra bonus in terms of changing combat odds from taking a specialist AA promotion, because 12 + 120% is only 10% more than 12+100%.

Or am I missing something really obvious here; with your changes, will ground units that intercept air units take damage?

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lol, yea, you missed that. I'm letting the ground unit take damage, but it's cut in half (the AttackerDivisor in the SpreadSheet), hence why there is an Avg Damage calculation for the interceptor(AA) unit (the spread sheet is only valid for air-ground).

I assume air combat with air interception is the same as ground combat, except for the cap on the number of rounds?

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Other than the fact that interception rate is used (which we've discussed of course) in the damage calculation, yep.

This seems reasonable.
We can also think about tuning the strength modifier vs air units of the various interception units.
One of the problems with the current system is that a unit that is 12 + 100% really gets very little extra bonus in terms of changing combat odds from taking a specialist AA promotion, because 12 + 120% is only 10% more than 12+100%.

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I've changed it where the Interceptor's Damage (how much he inflicts) is constant at 15, which means NeededRoundsDefender is constant at 7, while allowing Attacker Damage to move as before (since it's set where he'll never have enough needed rounds to make the kill) and made the iOdds a bit more dynamic to the combat ratio difference. It's attached, follows pretty close to the probabilities you proposed to follow.

As for the promotion bonuses (we don't have a 12 + 100% of course, mongoose is 12 + 50%), they seem in line after having gone over a number of different combinations, I wouldn't change them. The only AA unit that will never be able to have high kill odds against anything (unless they attack already injured) is the Rocket Trooper, and he can still lay down plenty of damage and come out with little damage himself. A base Mongoose Trooper has a 34% chance to take down a base Dragonfly bomber and that's without promotions or defensive bonuses (remember, city defense, rough terrain, and fortification will all count now), this is probably a little high.

Edit:
Also, while I want defensive bonuses to count towards defense, I'm realizing an AA unit in a city with high culture and building defense would become far more deadly, when it should just become more resistant to damage. To account for it, I'm changing it where Defensive Plot bonuses don't affect the iOdds, only bonuses based on the Attacker (e.i. UnitCombatMod against Hornets) etc., but the defensive bonuses still effectively reduce the damage the attacking aircraft can do per round to the AA unit. So when running any scenarios, don't figure in plot modifiers(terrain, features, city defense) for the AA, only modifiers against the attacker/general combat% modifiers and make the assumption that the damage to the AA unit will be lower if these are present.

To account for it, I'm changing it where Defensive Plot bonuses don't affect the iOdds, only bonuses based on the Attacker (e.i. UnitCombatMod against Hornets) etc.

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Good call!

Your treatment here sounds good, nice work.

I've got the interception chance in the plot help, had to do a little work to make sure it'll be visible if they are a lot of units on the tile... I've set it up so that it's less likely to run over the available space for the units list text in general too, even outside of airstike/bomb mode.

Now what I'd like to do is put together a very simple combat odds for if you are intercepted, probably just showing the odds of survival and avg damage you're expected to take. Right now, it's hard to get a grasp of if you're highly promoted and coveted bomber will survive an encounter with an interceptor or not.

That'll probably take me couple of days to put together and test for accuracy. In the mean time, I'm going to upload another update to the Beta (save game friendly ) later this afternoon with the discussed air combat changes and the interception odds display.

Now what I'd like to do is put together a very simple combat odds for if you are intercepted, probably just showing the odds of survival and avg damage you're expected to take. Right now, it's hard to get a grasp of if you're highly promoted and coveted bomber will survive an encounter with an interceptor or not.

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This sounds great. If you have a simple metric for airstrike survival, is this also something that could be tied into AI aircraft behavior? The AI is not really very good at using its aircraft.

This sounds great. If you have a simple metric for airstrike survival, is this also something that could be tied into AI aircraft behavior? The AI is not really very good at using its aircraft.

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yep, I haven't gotten to start writing it yet anyway, but an odds calculation could be worked into the AI to decide what to target or if it should try running a mission. I haven't taken a look at the Bomber/Fighter AI at all so I have no idea what logic it's following.

>>>Download 1.9.5 Beta1.2<<<

Hey guys, just a small update including the discussed Air combat changes as well as the interception and survival odds for air missions. I've also slightly rebalanced some of the siege promotions, small changes.

Like all other patches, it can be installed on a new 1.9.1 install, or on any patch after it. And, it's save game compatible with any Beta1 or Beta1.1 games.

Let me know what you think or if you have any problems, suggestions guys, and have fun.

Well, I guess since I haven't gotten to air units yet (or any other AI either), I might as well as install the new patch. Any chance you might give Dune University 1 a try? You have to playtest right?

Maybe once I finish a few more of my goals I'll think about it, right now it'd take up too much time. Right now I'd like to wrap up this round of AI and balance development/testing then aim for some more discussion on the espionage front and get the new Axolotl Tanks system in place, which will be a fair sized job to implement. I've also got my eye set on making the mentat AI a little more developed, they need to actually prioritize what cities they'd be useful in.

Well, I guess since I haven't gotten to air units yet (or any other AI either), I might as well as install the new patch.

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Yep, definitely, I'd like to see how they play into your current game. I made sure not to implement anything that would impact save games partly for that reason .

I also just remembered I wanted to show the added air mission help, here's a screen shot. I aimed to keep it pretty basic for now since it has to share help text area with any units on the plot. To try to make sure it doesn't get pushed off the top of the screen, I reduced how many units can be shown while in air mission mode and removed the 'plot help' stuff like culture, etc. while in that mode as well. I'll probably have it show who the interceptor would be (if intercepted) and air bomb chances on improvements as well.

Yep, definitely, I'd like to see how they play into your current game

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I just posted part 1 of the 2nd turnset. Man it really takes a long time to post the gameplay summary (and do right). I have already finished the 2nd turnset (actually last night) so hopefully I can finish the summary and get back to playing (turnset 3 - patch 1.9.5 beta 1.2) in the next day or so. Good times my friend, good times.

I aimed to keep it pretty basic for now since it has to share help text area with any units on the plot.

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Simple is good. This version alone (as in the screenshot) is a huge improvement. Nicely done!

I am tempted to take the anti-improvement air-bombing out of the mod though. It's far too powerful against the AI, because the AI doesn't manage to get interceptors up, and none of the ground-based AA have an area effect. So it lets you risklessly destroy their entire economy (by taking out the water providing improvements).

I am tempted to take the anti-improvement air-bombing out of the mod though. It's far too powerful against the AI, because the AI doesn't manage to get interceptors up, and none of the ground-based AA have an area effect. So it lets you risklessly destroy their entire economy (by taking out the water providing improvements).

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I agree that it's too powerful, though I don't think taking it out is the right choice, as the ability to damage the enemy economy with air superiority should be a legitimate available strategy. It can be part of the fun of gaining air superiority and building a large air force, I wouldn't want to take that away. The issue in my mind is that the improvement is either there... or it's not. It's a very binary system representing something that to the human mind shouldn't be. It creates an odd situation where the only way to regulate is with the odds the improvement is destroyed. If the odds of destroying improvements are too low, it just becomes a frustrating exercise for the player and they won't bother. If the odds are too high, it becomes overpowered. There is really no middle ground or perfect odds that make this work well.

What I'm going to tentatively propose is a damage state for improvements. An air bombing will always produce a result, so you don't have the frustrating 'you missed, congratulations on wasting your turn', but that result is not immediately crippling. Instead it has a result commensurate to the danger level (you should have already gotten air superiority if you are trying to bomb improvements).

The way I see this working is an improvement can receive damage, 0% is it's normal state we are all used to, 100% and it's removed. In between, the yield from the improvement is reduced by it's damage%. It would require a worker to repair, the repair time being equal to the improvement's normal build time * damage%. The DCM battle effects stuff already was graphics we can use to point out damaged improvements. When you bomb a plot, the message would say "you damaged *leader*'s *improvement* by *x%*", simple enough. On a first pass through my mind this seems like something simple enough for players to understand and enjoy, no extra micromanagement I can see. Thoughts?

as the ability to damage the enemy economy with air superiority should be a legitimate available strategy

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I think that bombing cities to destroy buildings is a sufficient way to leverage airpower into economic power, and it is something that the AI can actually protect against, by keeping AA units in its cities.

The issue in my mind is that the improvement is either there... or it's not

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This is part of the issue, but the larger issue is that the AI can't protect against it.
If you want to destroy their improvements, then use pillage, which at least exposes your units to counterattack.

If the odds of destroying improvements are too low, it just becomes a frustrating exercise for the player and they won't bother. If the odds are too high, it becomes overpowered. There is really no middle ground or perfect odds that make this work well.

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Agreed, which is why I would drop the mechanic.

What I'm going to tentatively propose is a damage state for improvements.

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I think this was a great innovation for Civ5, but I don't think we need to add it into Civ4. Unneccessary complication. I don't think we should add new mechanics just for the sake of it. Airpower is not a significant thing in Dune lore, and don't think it should be a central part of the game.

I think that bombing cities to destroy buildings is a sufficient way to leverage airpower into economic power, and it is something that the AI can actually protect against, by keeping AA units in its cities.

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I'm pretty sure that's only available if you turn on the DCM options for it? At any rate, I think being able to destroy buildings out right is maybe worse than the similar issue with improvements (at least the improvement only requires a few turns of a workers time, instead of a significant setback to the development of a city that will take a long time to repair). I'm also highly certain there is a bug when using the standard bombing/air strike missions with DCM bombing on that causes it to do the interception check twice. I haven't used any DCM options in so long (many are poorly balanced and written, and I just don't generally like them ) I don't know if it allows the standard missions, but if it does, the way the code re-routes them definitely will force you to pass the test twice (did I mention poorly written). Sorry for the rant , there are actually some exceptions in it that work well.

I think this was a great innovation for Civ5, but I don't think we need to add it into Civ4. Unneccessary complication. I don't think we should add new mechanics just for the sake of it. Airpower is not a significant thing in Dune lore, and don't think it should be a central part of the game.

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I don't see it as much of a complication, nor would it be just for it's own sake (we just covered why it'd be an improvement I think), but wether it's an important enough change to justify the time developing it I'm not sure of. But like I said, I think this is an important feature for being able to use your air power if you aren't immediately in a position to invade or just want to for the fun of it, so I'm not going to outright remove it. It's like cutting a toe off to remove a blister.

I'm pretty sure that's only available if you turn on the DCM options for it?

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I've lost track of which options are on in the latest build. As you say, there may also be some weird code issues here, but possibly that wouldn't be unsolveable?
I think the main issue is that an anti-economy bombing mission that the AI can defend against is better than an anti-economy bombing mission that they can't defend against.
But bombing is still powerful enough militarily that I don't think anti-economy bombing is an necessarily important mechanic to include anyway. But if it can be included, it has to be done so in a way that the AI can handle.

(we just covered why it'd be an improvement I think)

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It does not address the main issue at all, which is that the AI cannot adequately defend against it.
It also has frustrations and weirdness; discreteness issues, for example. Suppose an improvement gives 2 water and 1 commerce. What yields does it give at various levels of damage? 20%, 40%, 60%, 80%?
How will the AI know to repair it? Worker AI isn't great; why make this more complex?
Repair could also be frustrating MM busywork for the human player, particularly if there is no obvious visual indicator that the tile is damaged (like a permanent smoke column rising from the tile). They might be getting suboptimal tile yields, without knowing it.

I vote no, I would prefer to leave improvement destruction as it was than to add a whole new mechanic of damaged improvements.

But I think any mechanic where bombers can target improvements is pretty broken because of AI inability to defend against it, and because of the supreme importance in Dune wars of a handful of tiles. In vanilla Civ, your food sources are diversified, they come from most tiles. In Dune Wars, you can starve a city to death very rapidly taking out only 3-5 improvements (wells, windtraps, etc) causing an economy crash. So the cost of losing improvements is much higher.

but wether it's an important enough change to justify the time developing it I'm not sure of

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It doesn't seem like it to me.

But like I said, I think this is an important feature for being able to use your air power if you aren't immediately in a position to invade or just want to for the fun of it

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Why? And why does it need to be an anti-improvement mechanic?
If we want an anti-economy bombing mechanic, let's get one that targets cities, so the AI can defend against it. If you don't like destroying buildings entirely, then have the mission add a temporary building to the city which reduces yields. Eg: a successful bombing run adds a "bombing damage I" building that gives -10% hammers, gold, science, culture, and is removed after 10 turns. You could also have bombing damage II, III, IV, V buildings, so that heavy bombing could reduce city yields by up to 50% or more.

It's like cutting a toe off to remove a blister.

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I think you are overstating your case, and I think you are undervaluing how important it is to have mechanics that the AI can defend against.

There was also one small missing TXT_KEY issue when the interception rate is 0%, the beta1.2 file is already updated so anyone downloading it will have the issue fixed, but if you already downloaded it you can either redownload and install the patch, or just replace your "Dune Wars/Assets/CvGameCoreDLL.dll" with the one attached to this post. Obviously not a major issue either way, but it annoyed me I missed it

RE: tile bombing missions;

Whether there is a problem or not, tile bombing affects the human player as well. I know from the painful experience of having had cities starved down from loss of their water improvement tiles. It gets painful since not every firefly bomber will get intercepted and I have had interceptors get shot down by enemy firefly bombers (changed now?) I hate when it happens to me but love to do the same to the AI. The AI uses interceptors fairly well from my experience. I actually prefer to keep the mechanic roughly the same as it is now. If taken out, I wouldn't lose sleep over it though.

I think the main issue is that an anti-economy bombing mission that the AI can defend against is better than an anti-economy bombing mission that they can't defend against.

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I don't see this as much as you do. In my latest test game (on Monarch) the AIs have been fairly aggressive in keeping fighters in most cities near my borders during war. I beat the fremen to Air Superiority and just wiped out most of their wasps with my Locusts of course, but that's not entirely their fault . Could they do a better job of responding to air bombings, yes, but improving that response is a better course of action than removing this mechanic.

To put it simply, this is a fun thing to do sometimes. I don't use it often, but when I do, it's because it's fun to be able to hurt an enemy economy using air superiority, and if it was taken out, I don't think I'd be the only player who would miss it. For that reason, I'd rather focus towards improving it, not removing it--if we have to do anything at all. A simple GlobalDefines option would be easy to add though that controls if it's possible or not, much like I've done with thopters and capturing cities. Most players will never change such things, but they give deeper customization options to those who really want them without cluttering the custom game options screen with a million little things.

I've lost track of which options are on in the latest build. As you say, there may also be some weird code issues here, but possibly that wouldn't be unsolveable?

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The DCM options have a tab in the BUG options in RevDCM, but having just looked, Deliverator didn't merge that tab in. The only place to change those options are in 'My Documents/My Game/BeyondTheSword/Dune Wars/RevDCM.ini". None of the patches touch anything in that folder, so the default options here are from 1.9.1, which I haven't changed on my computer and DCM airbombing is set to 'false'. So that should be the default setting. If you can bomb buildings then this was set to true at some point on your computer, but I'm assuming most players have it off.

As for fixing issues, anything is fixable . It just means I'll have to pour over the DCM air bombing code and see how it's organized, and I really, really do dislike the way Dale wrote his code . I mean, really, couldn't he have just named things 'bombBuilding' or 'bombPort', but no, it's 'bomb1' and 'bomb2', and that's just the start of it . And... sorry for another Rant. His code really bugs me every time I have to look at it for something.

But yea, it's fixable. So the real question is, how many people actually use the DCM air bombing?

It does not address the main issue at all

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While I still haven't really decided I'd actually do it anyway, it does help the issue by still allowing the bombing of improvements (and hurting the enemy by it), which again is just a logical and fun thing that should be available to the player, but reduces the impact, makes it so multiple runs would be needed to utterly destroy improvements or really cripple the opponent. Making it take longer in and of itself makes it unlikely you'll be destroying the entire countryside (an ironic term to use for Arrakis, I know), but still leaves the player with the satisfaction. Remember, it's not always balance, sometimes it's more important to keep it fun.

But it is something I consider a minor improvement in the scope of the overall game and no high priority. Which means it'll probably never be done , at least not before the real priorities I have.

To answer a few of the other questions, the AI is simple as you treat it like an unimproved tile, with value modified by the actual yield lost from damage when workers consider what tile is the best next plot to work. Fits right into the normal decision flow for them.

Discreetness merely requires a close look at different scenarios, the initial system I'd think to use multiplies each yield it gives by damage/100 then rounds it, the biggest yield given (e.i. hammers for a mine) never drops below 1 until, obviously, the improvement is totally destroyed.

repair wouldn't be any more busywork than rebuilding a completely destroyed improvements. Either case requires the worker action. I'd already covered the need for artwork making it clear it's damaged in the first post.

a successful bombing run adds a "bombing damage I" building that gives -10% hammers, gold, science, culture, and is removed after 10 turns. You could also have bombing damage II, III, IV, V buildings, so that heavy bombing could reduce city yields by up to 50% or more.

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That's a much better approach than destruction of buildings. It represents more the temporary disruption in infrastructure without setting the city back 20 turns or whatever from one successful bombing run.

and I have had interceptors get shot down by enemy firefly bombers (changed now?)

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It's not mathematically impossible, but should be rare unless the interceptor was already damaged.

It's not mathematically impossible, but should be rare unless the interceptor was already damaged

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Nope. I never have injured interceptors do missions. More likely the infamous RNG screw. Civ's RNG is notoriously streaky.