Unofficial BTS 3.13 patch

Damn, I didn't even know subs wouldn't defend a stack either. I've been guarding transports with stealth destroyers and attack subs, aka nothing!
 
Hi

Er, how do you figure that? Battleships don't carry any units, and they aren't invisible. And they generally are the strongest unit on a square, which means they'd get picked to defend first. I think you are confusing the term "empty" with "capable of carrying units, but not". Any ship that doesn't currently have units on it, whether it can carry them or not, would be considered to defend before a ship that does have units on it. So Battleships would defend before Transports, loaded or unloaded. And if Stealth Destroyers were made to defend stacks, then they also would defend ahead of Transports.

yeah it looks like I am mistaken on this part. Like I said I dont usually play big naval games so am not really familiar with them and just based my posts on assumptions made from other posts I read without any kind of testing. I did do a couple of little tests and yeah battleships do seem to defend first. However the issue of empty wounded MC's defending ahead of healthy loaded MC's seems to apply though.


It's an issue of cost analysis. If you lose a healthy missile cruiser with other units on it, you've lost a lot more than losing an unhealthy missile cruiser that's empty. Choosing the best defender regardless of cargo sounds like a great plan until you consider the consequences of losing. I mean, consider the following: You've got a fully loaded Transport with 4 Modern Armor on it that has the Combat I promotion. And you've got an unloaded Transport with no promotions. You get attacked by a Battleship. Which Transport would you rather have defend?

Anyone with an ounce of sense is going to choose the unloaded Transport, despite the fact it has less strength - because it doesn't matter which you use, you're going to lose anyway (almost certainly, based on probability).

I'm not saying that they've made the right choice, but I can certainly see why they chose it.

Well that really wasnt the example I gave :p The above eample shows how that logic extends to other units that have nothing to do with transports.

Cost benefit analysis would seem to say you would want the loaded MC with 80 plus % chance to win to defend ahead of wounded empty MC with leas than 10% chance to win.

Cost benefit analysis would also say you would want full loaded transport with 80 plus % chance to win would be better choice than empty transport with less than 10% chance to win.

Your example would say that either choice would be likely to loss say loaded transport with 30% chance to win and unloaded with 10% chance to win smart choice would be to want unloaded transport to defend. That I agree but my point is the game puts HIGHER emphasis on empty vs non empty over chance to win. And while battleships dont seem to be affected MC's do. A loaded MC and an empty tranport in a stack attacked by an enemy the empty transport would be picked to defend ahead of the MC even though the MC has best chance to win. Now maybe logic would say transport has less to lose but it does end meaning that cost/benefit means BEST escorts for loaded transports would be empty transports. It would mean having transports escorted by battleships and destroyers would be LESS appealing than just empty transports since empty transports are cheaper to make and would force enemy units to waste hitpoints on cheap throwaway cannon fodder. I deal escort would be tons of unloaded transports and very few loaded MCs. Unloaded transports absorb the attacks. they most likely would lose but the attacking ships would most likely be wounded and easy pickings for the MCs to mop up.

It just doesnt make sense to me that best escorts in modern era seem to be unloaded transports. And this due to fact that they take priorty over loaded MC's to defend when they shouldn't.

Now yeah I agree making best defender period could end up in situations where loaded transport would be picked over unloaded. I think in cases were there is a "tie" strength wise between a loaded ship and unloaded ship then yeah unloaded ship should be given priority.

And yeah if in situations when attacked and no matter which unit in stack is picked battle is most likely to be lost OF COURSE I would want the unit with least to lose to be picked. BUT thats not how game works. SOmetimes on lad when your stack gets womped by say modern armor or some VASTLY superior unit and in your stack is level 40 maceman with a great general attached and other unit is a plain level 1 warrior. Yeah I would prefer the warrior get picked but in the game thats not how it works. That maceman is toast and it just something you have to live with.

BUT what DOESNT happen is say a chariot attacks instead of modern armor and game goes "oooh great general units are important and shouldnt be risked if another unit is available so warrior gets picked even though that gg maceman has 99% chance to win and warrior has pretty much no chance to win"

And wierd things like that DO happen in naval combat. For example:

I made a game with 2 unit stack a MC with no missles and a destroyer. I put a barb battelship next to it. Barb battle ship attacks and empty MC defends.

I then made game with MC but loaded it with missles and a destroyer in stack with barb battleship next to it. THIS time destroyer defends INSTEAD of MC.

I then made game with MC unloaded and empty transport and but barb battleship next to it. Battleship attacks and empty MC defends.

I then made game with MC but loaded it with missles and an empty transport put a barb battleship next to it barb battleship attacks and this time the empty transport defends.

Also in one of games where MC defended but was wounded VERY badly I did this. Made a new MC and loaded it with missles. and put it with severely wounded empty MC. I then but a barb battleship next to it. Fully healthy loaded MC had over 50% chance to win. Empty severely wouned MC had less than 0.1% chance to win. Barb battleship attacks and empty wounded MC defends.

I havent done this teast but I am will to bet if I made game with severely wounded empty mc and fully healthy loaded MC and then barb destroyer. Which would make the fully loaded MC WELL OVER 50% chance to win and severly woulded empty MC still well UNDER 50% chance to win the empty MC would STILL defend

If there is a logic to any of the above I am afraid I just dont see it at all. And I think a lot of that if not ALL of that can be avoided if sea combat runs just like land combat where best defender period defends.

And yeah in situations where if no matter what is picked the battle will be lost it may mean you end up with a unit being picked that you wished wasnt. But that situation is consistent with how it works for land combat as well. It can be sucky true but it just part of game you just have to do your best to pick you stacks so they defend how you want. And as annoying as occasionaly losing a transport full of valuable units may be it seems to me that seems more consistant and logical gameplay wise than any of the above tests I made.

I mean yeah its sucky if a Combat1 transport with 4 modern armor defends and loses and units are lost but at least I can understand and see why that combat 1 transport was picked to defend over an unpromoted empty one.

As a player I can understand why if either choice would likely end in loss why the empty transport would be prefered. But as a player I also understand why the game would pick the combat1 transport anyways as annoying as it might be.

For the life of me though I cant understand at all why a empty transport would be picked over a fully loaded Missle cruiser even if the MC has a high chance to win and transport has high chance to lose. Nor do I understand why a player would prefer a empty transport with high chance to lose over MC with high chance to win.



Let's just assume that I can implement it properly.

I wasnt assuming you couldnt. I wasnt trying to say anything about your programing skills at all. And I deeply and sincerely apologize if it came out that way. All I was saying was that at least to me it seems like in complex programs like a game like this changes can have potential for unforseen side effects no matter how skilled the programmer who makes the changes. And therefore the fewer and less complicated the changes the less likely the risk for something unforseen coming up. I am not a programmer honestly for all I know making changes like this involves pentagrams and killing chickens :p But seriously if any of my assumptions are off base or insulting I am deeply sorry.



Out of curiosity, in what way does the argument for Steath Destroyers differ from the argument from Subs (and please, don't bring "in real life" examples into play)?

Just to play devil's advocate--my argument would be because the reasons why a sub would be invisble/undectable in a game differs for why a stealth destroyer would be. And those diffrences (being submerged as opposed to being built out of materials and shaped to give a small or non existent radar/sonar profile) can expalin how a sub would be out of postion/unable to defend a convoy while a stealth destoyer would be in postion to defend. And why if a enemy vessal got close enough to attack the convoy it would be able to "see" the stealth destroyer but still not able to "see" the sub.



No, it doesn't affect the problem in the slightest. The problem is not "Destroyers upgrade to Stealth Destroyers", the problem is people assume Steath Destroyers will defend their stack.

Bh

I guess maybe it depends on definition of the problem or even why stealth destroyers not being able to defend stacks or see subs is a problem.

For me it is like this. Destroyers are handy ships for many functions. Main functions being the best at locating subs and best for transport escort duty. With BtS stealth destroyers come along. All of a sudden they no longer perfom the duties I use destroyers for. Ok bad surprise kind of sucky but next thinking is ok what is the ship that I can know use for those functions. NOW here is the problem--there isnt any. A stealth desroyer has its uses but they are very different form the uses the regualr destroyers were ideal for. But their isnt any "modern" equivalent of the "regular" destroyer.

To me that is the problem. Stealth destoryers stop performing the duties of a regualr destroyer but those duties are still necessary and there isnt any new unit to take their place.

Most peoples solution is to make as many regualr destoyers as they think they will need or as close to that number they can before stealth destroyers come online and regular destroyers can no longer be made and not upgrade them which is fine but kind of annoying.

To me there are several soltuions.

One would be to change stealth destroyers so that they can STILL perfom the functions of regualr destroyers. Meaning make them defend stacks and make them able to detect subs. The downside means fiddling with the combat system so the game knows WHEN they should be stealthy and when they shouldnt.

Another would be to allow regular destroyers to still be made. This solution would allow a unit that can be made to still perfom the "escort" functions and to me at least has less chance of unforseen complications than fiddling with a stealth destroyers "stealthyness" might.

Yeah this soltuion means Stealth destoyers cant be escorts and they are "real life" argurments (some of which I have made myself) about how they probably "should". But like has been pointed out real life arguments dont always make best solutions game play wise. Game play wise you would still have a sub detecting escort destroyer and the stealth destroyer. And game play wise you would no more expect the stealth destroyer to perfome the escort destroyer's functions anymore than game play wise you would expect an explorer to perform a swordsman's functions even if "real life" arguments could be made on how they should.

Another solution would be to allow Missle cruisers to see subs. The upside to this solution is that since destroyers now can upgrade to MC's anyways making the MC a sub detector makes it more of a "true" upgrade. The "industrial" destroyer upgrades to a more powerful versital "modern" unit without losing any of its main functions. And it also avoids having to make changes to the stealth destroyer's "stealthyness".

All three soltions solve the problem which is not that stealth destroyers cant defend stacks or defend subs but just that since they cant when they come into play an "ideal" modern sub hunting escort surface ship is no longer available. All three solutions have upsides and downsides.

Maybe there are even other solutions that would be even better choices. I dont know. I am just offering my pinions for what they are worth.

And again I sincerely hope I havent been sounding like I am whining or criticizing you. I think what you have been doing for us is wonderful and am just trying to be helpful and if I sounded like I was doing ANYTHING other than that I am very very sorry :(

Kaytie
 
I also did not read that post so I'll just say that any behavior that takes that many words to describe would be not be easy to script the A.I. into doing.
 
All I have done is just cut the upgrade paths from Destroyer to Stealth Destroyer, at least that way I can still have them around as cheap escorts and sub hunters while the modern ships do the main fighting.
 
What would be great is if those fully loaded missile cruisers would launch their missiles when attacked. Same goes for carriers: attack with fighters. After that, proceed to your regular stack defense rules.
 
Well, there's still some other things I'm considering. Stealth units, for one. I can understand that if all you've got on a square is a Stealth Destroyer, for example, then allowing the enemy to attack it makes the whole "Stealth" concept moot. On the other hand, if you've got a Stealth Destroyer on the same square as a loaded Transport, wouldn't it make sense for the Stealth Destroyer to defend the Transport (ie, be used to defend instead of the Transport)? I can't see any realistic or game play reason to suggest the Stealth Destroyer should just sit back and calmly watch the Transport get sunk.

Bh

The "Stealth" ability only concerns not being able to see the ship on Radar. It does not make the ship invisible to the human eye.

The Radar will be clear if the SD is alone. It will show activity if a transport is around. It will show the same activity if the transport is escorted by a SD. THey will not know what they are attacking until within visible range.

So if an enemy ship/sub approaches to attack a transport which is escorted by a stealth destroyer - they will see that ship also.

So yes - the stealth destroyer should defend.
 
Also in one of games where MC defended but was wounded VERY badly I did this. Made a new MC and loaded it with missiles. and put it with severely wounded empty MC. I then but a barb battleship next to it. Fully healthy loaded MC had over 50% chance to win. Empty severely wounded MC had less than 0.1% chance to win. Barb battleship attacks and empty wounded MC defends.

I havent done this test but I am will to bet if I made game with severely wounded empty MC and fully healthy loaded MC and then barb destroyer. Which would make the fully loaded MC WELL OVER 50% chance to win and severely wounded empty MC still well UNDER 50% chance to win the empty MC would STILL defend
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For the life of me though I cant understand at all why a empty transport would be picked over a fully loaded Missile cruiser even if the MC has a high chance to win and transport has high chance to lose. Nor do I understand why a player would prefer a empty transport with high chance to lose over MC with high chance to win.

the last paragraph i quoted wasn't directly under the first two in your original post. i moved it to more directly show you why this player prefers what you don't understand anybody having a preference for ;). i think i play much more conservatively than you on battles like the ones we're discussing. to me "well over 50% chance to win" isn't high. on an expensive troop i need to have when i get where i'm going, 80% odds for some distraction on the way aren't high. this is my perspective here, i admit that i'm a wuss, and i'm a terrible warmonger. just showing you one of the other sides.

i look at "fully loaded MC WELL OVER 50% chance to win" in your example and what i think is "X hammers spent on the MC + 4xY hammers spent on missiles + time to travel where i am = i ain't gonna risk this thing on any battles that aren't 99.9% in my favor." i have a plan for that boat, and i brought other boats along to do other jobs. this particular loaded MC in my inflexible little mind is supposed to go drop exploding thingies on stuff, and if it dies defending in a battle where i could have lost just an empty MC, that's a much bigger hit i've taken. keeping it alive to do the job is my priority #1. i miiiiiight pause to kill a trireme for 1 exp maaaaybe, but i'm telling you, i am ultra-cautious *giggle*. you would lose your mind laughing at how bad i am at wars and how overprepared i have to be to win one :lol:

i first noticed the "transports don't defend" rule when my privateers were out harassing caravels. when caravel escorts died then the galleons they were protecting had higher odds and i was not a happy camper, and realized what was going on. but i do think it's the best way to design it, really. i'd rather lose an empty ship than one carrying something, as a general rule. and if that someday makes me lose a really expensive ship defending a transport has just a warrior onboard for some stupid reason, well, knowing me that probably is gonna happen, but oh well.

actually tho, this is all a way of getting around one of the warlords changes. in vanilla you could see what troops were on board enemy ships. now you can't, you can't even tell if there's anything on them. but with this rule in place, as long as you're at war (or have enough privateers to do it peacefully!) and have enough ships to kill all escort ships, then targeting a stack of enemy ships that include a transport or 3 will let you know as the escorts whittle down whether there are troops on the ships. i mean, if it's a caravel and a galleon and the caravel's defending vs. your privateer, dead give-away there's something on the galleon. not that it helps you, but hey, at least you know part of what you're not supposed to know any more. :mischief:
 
The "Stealth" ability only concerns not being able to see the ship on Radar. It does not make the ship invisible to the human eye.

The Radar will be clear if the SD is alone. It will show activity if a transport is around. It will show the same activity if the transport is escorted by a SD. THey will not know what they are attacking until within visible range.

So if an enemy ship/sub approaches to attack a transport which is escorted by a stealth destroyer - they will see that ship also.

So yes - the stealth destroyer should defend.

I agree. I do not think that stealth is supposed to represent a Star Trek cloaking device -- if you're within line-of-sight, you have a chance of actually seeing the thing. Therefore, I think that if an enemy ship moves into the square of the stealth ship, the enemy should be surprised with combat (with the stealth ship 'defending'). Isn't this the way submarines work? It's not like the crew of the other ship couldn't see the thing, and at the very least, even if the enemy ship is sunk, the enemy's headquarters will know that something's up in that square because their ship went off the air.
 
and at the very least, even if the enemy ship is sunk, the enemy's headquarters will know that something's up in that square because their ship went off the air.

could be sea monsters. or the bermuda triangle. they don't know it's subs or SDs. hey, maybe mutiny. that'd be fun.
 
Can someone point me to the post in this thread where Bhruic tells us how he fixed the Executive Spam problem?

Thanks,

-DaHa
 
Can someone point me to the post in this thread where Bhruic tells us how he fixed the Executive Spam problem?

it is unclear to me. he said flat out he was not going to take away the gold cost of spread corps, that was just a discussion of what some folks were thinking of modding in their own games. we all you bad influences, present poster excluded naturally, keep sidetracking this thread, poor Bh.

this is the most recent post i could find. click the red arrow thingy to find the quotes he was directly responding to. he'll step in and tell us what he did of course, so i don't know why i'm posting except that i was bored and not yet awake enough to load up my game, i'm in the middle of a modern war and all that.

bold part is mine:
No, you are confusing cause and effect. Too many executives is the effect. The cause is the AI not having the money to spread its corporation. It's possible to minimize the effect (which is what I've tried to do), but as long as the cause is there, the problem remains.
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Leaving aside the debate over how important corporations are, I think it's pretty important that the AI can spread its corporations. As long as it has the imperative to do so, but not the means, there's going to be a problem. If you're advocating removing the imperative, that's fine. But at that point one might as well argue to remove corporations in general. You're welcome to do that, but it's certainly not something I'd do in a patch.
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I'd like to fix it. But it's not a simple fix.
 
Basically what I did is make it so that the more Executives the AI currently has, the less chance it has of building new ones. This is especially true for a particular city, if it already has Executives sitting idle in the city, it should be much less likely to build more of them.

Which doesn't mean it won't. It just won't prioritize building them nearly as highly as it was doing previously.

Bh
 
the last paragraph i quoted wasn't directly under the first two in your original post. i moved it to more directly show you why this player prefers what you don't understand anybody having a preference for ;). i think i play much more conservatively than you on battles like the ones we're discussing. to me "well over 50% chance to win" isn't high. on an expensive troop i need to have when i get where i'm going, 80% odds for some distraction on the way aren't high. this is my perspective here, i admit that i'm a wuss, and i'm a terrible warmonger. just showing you one of the other sides.

i look at "fully loaded MC WELL OVER 50% chance to win" in your example and what i think is "X hammers spent on the MC + 4xY hammers spent on missiles + time to travel where i am = i ain't gonna risk this thing on any battles that aren't 99.9% in my favor." i have a plan for that boat, and i brought other boats along to do other jobs. this particular loaded MC in my inflexible little mind is supposed to go drop exploding thingies on stuff, and if it dies defending in a battle where i could have lost just an empty MC, that's a much bigger hit i've taken. keeping it alive to do the job is my priority #1. i miiiiiight pause to kill a trireme for 1 exp maaaaybe, but i'm telling you, i am ultra-cautious *giggle*. you would lose your mind laughing at how bad i am at wars and how overprepared i have to be to win one :lol:

i first noticed the "transports don't defend" rule when my privateers were out harassing caravels. when caravel escorts died then the galleons they were protecting had higher odds and i was not a happy camper, and realized what was going on. but i do think it's the best way to design it, really. i'd rather lose an empty ship than one carrying something, as a general rule. and if that someday makes me lose a really expensive ship defending a transport has just a warrior onboard for some stupid reason, well, knowing me that probably is gonna happen, but oh well.

actually tho, this is all a way of getting around one of the warlords changes. in vanilla you could see what troops were on board enemy ships. now you can't, you can't even tell if there's anything on them. but with this rule in place, as long as you're at war (or have enough privateers to do it peacefully!) and have enough ships to kill all escort ships, then targeting a stack of enemy ships that include a transport or 3 will let you know as the escorts whittle down whether there are troops on the ships. i mean, if it's a caravel and a galleon and the caravel's defending vs. your privateer, dead give-away there's something on the galleon. not that it helps you, but hey, at least you know part of what you're not supposed to know any more. :mischief:

Hi

hehe wow someone read that post of mine :)

I can see your point. I can see situations where I have this unit or units and I want them to get to this spot ASAP and I dont want them stopping or risk getting destroyed no matter what so dont want them fighting at all period.

And if they did end up getting attacked and destroyed it would be very very annoying.

An example would be say I make a stack of 10 MC's loaded with curise missles and I want them to go over do a bunch of strategic strikes somewhere so I dont want them fighting at all on the way even if they have 90 plus percent chance to win I dont want to risk em and if any of em did get destroyed from getting caught in battle I didnt want them to get into it would DEFINITELY fry my cheese too.

However lets use another example say I have a UU I really like and it requires iron. Only iron doesnt show up in my civ's borders. That would also annoy me BIG TIME.

And the way naval combat is set up just seems to me like it is using a soltution to an annoying problem that is equivalent to saying "well yeah not having iron for a UU you really like is annoying therefore anytime you dont have iron in your borders you can build that UU anyways."

It just doesnt seem like a solution that is in spirit of game. I mean like soltions for not having iron is find out where nearest source is and if it unclaimed go get it or if it is claimed then trade for it or fight for it if you have to and if none of those solutions work oh well sometimes things dont go as planned and you have to adjust. Its frustrating and annoying but in long run it also part of what makes it fun and exciting when you DO get iron and when things DO go like you planned. Maybe just saying well if no iron then you can build em anyways is easeir and less frustrating than doing without or going out to fight or trade for it but it doesnt seem to be in spirit of game.

To me it is the same thing with stack of MC's or loaded transports. Soltions for not getting them destroyed means doing things like sending out scouts ahead of em to keep look out for enemy ships. Having a "screening" stack that will go out and engage any ships the scouts find that get too close to make sure those ships get destroyed before they get to main stack or at least keep the enemy ships busy enough to give main stack time to avoid em.

Maybe that plan wont ALWAYS work but same way that if you need iron making a plan to go get it wont always work and frustrating when it doesnt work it is TONS of fun when it does work especially if its in spirit of game.

And they way naval combat works using scouts and screening ships to escort isnt the way thats encouraged. On a strict cost of hammers versus benefits you get ratio. The BEST way to protect those MC's or ANY stack of ships you want to make sure NEVER get into fights is to keep a ton of empty transports in any stack you want protected. That encourages you to guard MC's with transports when it should be to me at least the other way around.

For me it just turns the game on its head the same way making a UU that is supposed to need iron able to be made anyways if for some unlucky break you dont get iron. Maybe its less furtrating in sense that its cheap easy way to make sure your plan will work. But it just bugs me. But yeah thats just me. Some parts of game bug me that dont bother anyone else. And some things that REALLY annoy others arent a problem with me.

As for the way to tell if transport is loaded or unloaded. I dont really think if they changed game to make it so you couldnt tell if a transport was loaded that they word then work in a loophole around it :/ But then if I see a stack of ANYTHING headed my way I assume its loaded and up to no good and needs attacking hehe and depending on who the stack is from I might use privateers to sink or if it age past privateer time then I might try to bribe someone else to declare on them and hope it will get em to move that stack in new direction or if it seems only choice get my fleet together declare war first and hit that stack and hopefully sink it before it even gets to my coast :). So losing that loophole wouldnt bother me much since I play paranoid anyways hehe.

Kaytie
 
It just doesnt make sense to me that best escorts in modern era seem to be unloaded transports. And this due to fact that they take priorty over loaded MC's to defend when they shouldn't.

I don't understand why you are describing them as "best escorts". The idea of an escort is something that will protect the other unit. The empty Transport might get attacked before the other unit, but its low strength means it's almost certain to lose - hardly good protection.

And yeah if in situations when attacked and no matter which unit in stack is picked battle is most likely to be lost OF COURSE I would want the unit with least to lose to be picked. BUT thats not how game works. SOmetimes on lad when your stack gets womped by say modern armor or some VASTLY superior unit and in your stack is level 40 maceman with a great general attached and other unit is a plain level 1 warrior. Yeah I would prefer the warrior get picked but in the game thats not how it works. That maceman is toast and it just something you have to live with.

No, but your Macemen isn't carrying around other units who are going to die if it dies. And who have no chance to defend themselves independently. If there was some sort of land-based transport unit, I'm sure they would have implemented the same system to protect those as well.

And wierd things like that DO happen in naval combat. For example:

None of those "examples" are the slightest bit weird. In every case, the strongest empty defender is chosen to defend. It's a very simple, straightforward rule.

If there is a logic to any of the above I am afraid I just dont see it at all. And I think a lot of that if not ALL of that can be avoided if sea combat runs just like land combat where best defender period defends.

It's an entirely logical choice. "Don't risk losing a ship with cargo if there is another ship to defend". The idea is that the cargo is more important than the other ship. That's not always true, but it often is. Often enough to make it a general rule.

I mean yeah its sucky if a Combat1 transport with 4 modern armor defends and loses and units are lost but at least I can understand and see why that combat 1 transport was picked to defend over an unpromoted empty one.

You can "understand and see why" the rule works in the reverse direction too. You just don't agree with it.

For the life of me though I cant understand at all why a empty transport would be picked over a fully loaded Missle cruiser even if the MC has a high chance to win and transport has high chance to lose. Nor do I understand why a player would prefer a empty transport with high chance to lose over MC with high chance to win.

High chance to win doesn't mean no chance to lose. I'm sure we'd have numerous people complaining "why did my fully loaded ship get chosen to defend when there were unloaded ships on the same square?!?!?!" if it worked in the reverse direction. Because some of those battles would get lost, meaning an entire ship's worth of cargo gets sunk.

But seriously if any of my assumptions are off base or insulting I am deeply sorry.

I wasn't offended by the question - I'm just saying, for the sake of the discussion, let's assume it's entirely possible, not argue over whether it can or can't be done.

One would be to change stealth destroyers so that they can STILL perfom the functions of regualr destroyers. Meaning make them defend stacks and make them able to detect subs. The downside means fiddling with the combat system so the game knows WHEN they should be stealthy and when they shouldnt.

Being able to defend and being able to spot subs are two different areas. I'm only suggesting making them able to defend, I'm not going to change whether they can or can't spot subs.

Another would be to allow regular destroyers to still be made. This solution would allow a unit that can be made to still perfom the "escort" functions and to me at least has less chance of unforseen complications than fiddling with a stealth destroyers "stealthyness" might.

You're welcome to do so, but that change it outside of the range I'm looking at. I'm just trying to have the game match the majority of player's expectations so we get less complaints around here about why someone's SD didn't defend their stack of ships.

And game play wise you would no more expect the stealth destroyer to perfome the escort destroyer's functions anymore than game play wise you would expect an explorer to perform a swordsman's functions even if "real life" arguments could be made on how they should.

I'm not sure why you think that's the case. Once again, it's not simply the fact that Destroyers upgrade to Stealth Destroyers (you actually have the choice of upgrading them to MCs instead) that confuses people. It's the fact they have a unit on a square, and that unit is a military one, and it's not defending that square. It breaks player expectations.

All three soltions solve the problem which is not that stealth destroyers cant defend stacks or defend subs but just that since they cant when they come into play an "ideal" modern sub hunting escort surface ship is no longer available. All three solutions have upsides and downsides.

Once again, that is not the problem under discussion. If you want to start another thread discussing the other issues, that would give a better venue to discuss those problems. But the only problem I am considering fixing is having SDs defend a square when other ships are present. The problems of sub detection and upgrade paths are completely outside that scope.

And again I sincerely hope I havent been sounding like I am whining or criticizing you. I think what you have been doing for us is wonderful and am just trying to be helpful and if I sounded like I was doing ANYTHING other than that I am very very sorry :(

Not at all. I enjoy a good discussion. :)

Bh
 
The BEST way to protect those MC's or ANY stack of ships you want to make sure NEVER get into fights is to keep a ton of empty transports in any stack you want protected. That encourages you to guard MC's with transports when it should be to me at least the other way around.

Ok, here's where I think that you are so focused on the trees, you are losing sight of the forest. You say the best way to protect the stack is to have a bunch of empty Transports. Ok, so the enemy attacks that stack, and every attack sinks a Transport because they have such low combat str. If the enemy is only attacking with a few units, that might actually protect the stack for a bit, but eventually all the Transports are sunk, and they can attack the cargo-carrying ships.

Ok, so how about empty MCs in the stack? Suddenly the attack odds are much better in your favour. So most of the attackers are likely to lose. That makes empty MCs even better defenders.

Now how about Battleships? Same strength as the MCs, but even cheaper. Which means they are even better defenders than MCs.

In other words, empty Transports are about the worst defenders you can get, unless you happen to have a lot of them around, and are willing to use them in suicide defense. But it's a big waste of hammers, and it's not going to cause the attackers any damage. If you want to defend a stack properly, using strictly military ships is almost always preferable.

Bh
 
Well, they won't do Collateral Damage on defense, but yes, that can work in your favour as well. I didn't even bring up the concept of "pro-active" defense (ie, attack them first).

Bh
 
So Bhruic, you have no interest in putting your fixes in with the Modular XML Loading fixes? We can include them without you, but that is not the ideal situation.

Just curious.....as the only non-modular thing we have in the DLL is AutoAI, the rest is optional via the Modules folder as we have totally rewrote the Firaxis/Impaler XML Loading feature in BtS.
 
[...] It's the fact they have a unit on a square, and that unit is a military one, and it's not defending that square. It breaks player expectations.[...]
Man, I really love you! :goodjob:

Not only for your excellent work here but because you understand a player! :goodjob:

Once again, thank you so much for the effort and good job you are doing here!
 
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