C2C Combat Mod Option: Hide and Seek

Thunderbrd said:

2) Looking at the chart and doing the math it doesn't seem terribly problematic though Fine still seems extremely excessive to me. In large groups of millions or more, fine would still be pretty openly visible.

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Now talking about fine as if there was a smaller size already: I think even Countless-Fine should have 1 invisibility intensity so a colossal entity would need to be promoted and high quality to see them. It is so big that it would have a hard time getting close enough to see something as small as an insect. just think about it how close to a sandcorn do you have to be to see it when it's not lying on a single-colored flat surface.

Thunderbrd said:

3) I think a bit too much power to spot low size is given to the size of the unit to determine and not quite enough on the quality but that may just be a less relevant opinion.

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I just figured that a change in size category would have a bigger impact in size-invisibility than a units inherent talent does to visibility.


Updated the excel again.
And yes, I know I can't just add those values to keen senses and strike team unit combat, for reasons discussed earlier. ^^
They are there just to show that we could change it further with unitcombat if needed.

Group volume still has such a massive effect on visibility and quality perhaps not quite enough.

As a compromise, I suggest shifting the volume vis modifier chart down so that you keep the same progressions but subtract all numbers by 3 so that Medium Solo is unadjusted and add 3 to all the numbers on the quality scale to give quality a bit more potency. This should favor quality a bit more (let's not underestimate the value of confident vigilance.)

Also, there's a few ways we could add size visibility modifiers to existing unitcombats. (Option edits, Free promotions which have a prereq of both options that add another tagalong unitcombat or simply contains the value in the free promo)

Thunderbrd said:

Wouldn't be a problem to add them. Only the lion pack would need to be optioned out there, as it would be optioned out elsewhere. The tag to spawn multiples could be turned off as well but might be easier to option off those. I'm going to have to add tags to define the range of potential group sizes when spawning anyhow and adding in option tags wouldn't be adding much more effort.

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This, range of sizes, opens a whole new can of worms. For example you would expect a "herd" of deer to spawn on a deer resource but lesser sizes to spawn near a deer resource.

Thunderbrd said:

All maps have definitions for both latitude and longitude on its plots. Whether it's displaying or not anywhere is another issue I'm not sure of but I thought I'd made that possible when running chipotle. As for how to set the lat/long grid axis point on a premade map, that's another matter entirely. Not sure how we'd go about that. Would have to be a feature added to the world builder to be able to set the 0/0 plot. I suppose I could set it up in the dll and give a widget for it but adding the widget to the WB I'd not know anything about and I'd not be 100% sure that the way I normally am able to call up actions through a widget would interact ok with WB or not.

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They have latitude defined in the map but not longitude. This is why we need different spawn files for the huge and giant Earth maps which have the left hand edge of the mini map not at 180 degrees.

Thunderbrd said:

Group volume still has such a massive effect on visibility and quality perhaps not quite enough.

As a compromise, I suggest shifting the volume vis modifier chart down so that you keep the same progressions but subtract all numbers by 3 so that Medium Solo is unadjusted and add 3 to all the numbers on the quality scale to give quality a bit more potency. This should favor quality a bit more (let's not underestimate the value of confident vigilance.)

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Would this really change quality relative to unit volume at all? All unit would still start out with the same visibility intensity and each quality and volume point would still count for 1 intensity (except for the quality extreme points that count for more).

Dancing Hoskuld said:

This, range of sizes, opens a whole new can of worms. For example you would expect a "herd" of deer to spawn on a deer resource but lesser sizes to spawn near a deer resource.

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I don't think we'd need to get that specific about it. We can have them all coming from the same sources. They move around afterwards anyhow.

It does open up some potential other stuff though but I'll discuss that later.

They have latitude defined in the map but not longitude. This is why we need different spawn files for the huge and giant Earth maps which have the left hand edge of the mini map not at 180 degrees.

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How do they establish the latitude definition in WB? Perhaps we could piggyback off of that mechanism or clone it.

Toffer90 said:

Would this really change quality relative to unit volume at all? All unit would still start out with the same visibility intensity and each quality and volume point would still count for 1 intensity (except for the quality extreme points that count for more).

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It would simply put a bit more emphasis on the quality over the volume is all. I feel the volume has too much emphasis and the quality not enough. Such a move would balance the two out at least.

Thunderbrd said:

It would simply put a bit more emphasis on the quality over the volume is all. I feel the volume has too much emphasis and the quality not enough. Such a move would balance the two out at least.

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What you said wouldn't have changed anything, all units, no matter what unitcombats or promotion they had, would have had the same visibility intensity with or without you suggestion.

But I changed the excel to put more emphasis on quality level anyway: ^^

Ok, initially that looks pretty good from what I can tell.

Do me a favor and test it with a modmod at first here. If you and others playtesting don't find any problems with it, I'm all for giving it a greenlight.

Ok, so looks like I need to add a Microscopic size unitcombat and apply it to nanos. Given their massive volumes it could help with balancing them anyhow.

And I'll see what I can do regarding that negative range issue.

EDIT: Maybe a bit severe on the penalties for low combat classes. Workers and other civilian units, being entirely not combat oriented, may not be able to even see an approaching battalion.

Thunderbrd said:

Ok, initially that looks pretty good from what I can tell.

Do me a favor and test it with a modmod at first here. If you and others playtesting don't find any problems with it, I'm all for giving it a greenlight.

Ok, so looks like I need to add a Microscopic size unitcombat and apply it to nanos. Given their massive volumes it could help with balancing them anyhow.

And I'll see what I can do regarding that negative range issue.

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Cool cool. I will release it in my civic modmod tonight but could also rip it out and release it as a standalone for a better testing platform.

Note my above edit: Maybe a bit severe on the penalties for low combat classes. Workers and other civilian units, being entirely not combat oriented, may not be able to even see an approaching battalion.

Thunderbrd said:

Note my above edit: Maybe a bit severe on the penalties for low combat classes. Workers and other civilian units, being entirely not combat oriented, may not be able to even see an approaching battalion.

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True, I wanted most 0 units to be bad at watching their surroundings but it might be a tad too much.

Let's list some:

Can detect - Units
Solo - Android Worker
Party - Clone Worker, Buddhist/Confucian/Taoist/Hellenic Missionary, Inquisitor
Squad - Gatherer, Worker,
Party - Dog worker, Pioneer
Company - Band of homo sapiens, Nagualistic Missionary, Constuction Ship
Battalion - Camel/Mule/Buffalo/Elephant/Llama Worker, Settler, Tribe, Colonist, Industrial/Modern Worker, Jewish/Islamic/Kemetic Missionary, Old Workboats
Forces - Bulldozers,
Clan - Air Settler, Space Settler, Seed Ship
Horde - Christian/Hindu/Zoroastrian/ Missionary, Modern Workboat

Yes, this is not good enough, something must be changed. I will add range instead of intensity for half of the volume increments, this should open up some balancing aspects.

OK, so with range into the equation things seems to have gotten better for weak units.


For Medium-Solo/Party/Squad units: Pathetic can now detect Battalion, Inferior can see Squad, Mediocre can see party and exceptional is required to see Solo. Company-Superior & Forces-Standard can also detect Solo

I don't really like the naming of group volumes, they should for simplicity be named just "Group Volume 1 → 13"; Or perhaps "Tally 1 → 13"

I didn't name them in this manner since 1 is not one. It's -4. Battalion is the 0 point. And it's based on the standard size of a large scale military unit. Divisions from there were named based on the divisional breakdowns from battalions which fit the numeric ranges perfectly. I suppose spending some time in the Army had an influence on that. Going up from there was a bit more difficult and started drawing on older references.

The rest of the evaluation has warped my head too far for further analysis at the moment

Thunderbrd said:

I didn't name them in this manner since 1 is not one. It's -4. Battalion is the 0 point. And it's based on the standard size of a large scale military unit. Divisions from there were named based on the divisional breakdowns from battalions which fit the numeric ranges perfectly. I suppose spending some time in the Army had an influence on that. Going up from there was a bit more difficult and started drawing on older references.

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It is only forces and upwards that I don't like, but especially millions to trillions. Countless is a good roof name though. And who cares if group volume 1 is not the standard volume; it would be called 1 as it is the smallest group volume.

Noticed now that we have INVISIBLE_NANO as an invisibility type.
So either we don't need the unitcombat SIZE_MICROSCOPIC or we don't need the invisibility type INVISIBLE_NANO. What is your opinion; if we were to keep both then the lowest size wouldn't need to be so drastically different from the rest.

Edit: tested negative values for range, seems like it does have a rather awkward effect currently. It makes units invisible if they get too close and visible when they move away, in other words it increases intensity the further away from the unit it goes.

Thunderbrd said:

2) Scouts become too naturally invisible so when you capture things out in the field with explorer units, the captured would tend to become sitting ducks.

3) I think quality should NOT add to invisibility. Invisibility is not always a desired state as it can impede your ability to make a defensive stand - you can't against those that don't see you.

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Consider making most "invisibility" optional, in that the 'invisible' unit can make themselves 'visible' if they so choose.

And if I may mention again the possibility of promos that can be chosen as "missions" ie. action buttons. So a default-invisible unit can pick up a temporary promo to become visible, for as long as it wishes to be so. And maybe a default-visible unit eg. Marines or Law Enforcement should be able to go invisible for undercover/black ops mode operation. (As an aside, HNs could use the same mechanism to "Declare Nationality" if they so wished).

Afflictions and equipment etc. are going to need these kinds of promos anyway, and they have been done in other mods (eg. Fall From Heaven II), so it might be time..

You mostly want your units to be visbible when you defend something.
Maybe it would be easier to add -2 invisibility per turn to the fortification command;
it would make sense anyways that units that build a defensive structure are more visible than others.

Faustmouse said:

You mostly want your units to be visbible when you defend something.
Maybe it would be easier to add -2 invisibility per turn to the fortification command;
it would make sense anyways that units that build a defensive structure are more visible than others.

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You either want to be invisible or you don't. And it doesn't take one or more turns to say "boo" or wave a big flag...

And most often when you want to defend something (at least where these explorer and strike team units are concerned), you are not fortified.

RE: Naming - I find that once you've got a number memorized to a name it's a pain in the arse to change it. Furthermore, I'm not really seeing anything but an individual opinion (aka no evidence based rationale showing cause to make a change there) which I can't fault you for but also am not compelled by. It would be just as likely to have dislike from anyone for any naming is my point. Since it's been established and been this way for a bit and its not hard to remember the way its setup, why change it?

Toffer90 said:

Noticed now that we have INVISIBLE_NANO as an invisibility type.
So either we don't need the unitcombat SIZE_MICROSCOPIC or we don't need the invisibility type INVISIBLE_NANO. What is your opinion; if we were to keep both then the lowest size wouldn't need to be so drastically different from the rest.

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SIZE_MICROSCOPIC and INVISIBLE_NANO would be different things. The invisible nano was envisioned during some of the naval review late game brainstorming where some Troid units (extremely advanced AI) are made up of trillions of nano-cells that can, at their option, decide to scatter their nano-cells out across vast distances to be effectively immaterial and very difficult to deeply injure, then pull themselves back together when they wish to 'manifest'. It's not something that follows the same principles as a simple microscopic group size. However, the sensory tools developed to find and identify the presence of a unit using Nano invisibility would certainly give some similar revealing capacity to detect the presence of Microscopic size units.

Edit: tested negative values for range, seems like it does have a rather awkward effect currently. It makes units invisible if they get too close and visible when they move away, in other words it increases intensity the further away from the unit it goes.

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That's strange considering the code currently only interacts with positive values on range. (Or it should... I might be looking at the code after my adjustments last night which should soon be posted to the SVN that should make negative range work the way you suggested.)

Yudishtira said:

Consider making most "invisibility" optional, in that the 'invisible' unit can make themselves 'visible' if they so choose.

And if I may mention again the possibility of promos that can be chosen as "missions" ie. action buttons. So a default-invisible unit can pick up a temporary promo to become visible, for as long as it wishes to be so. And maybe a default-visible unit eg. Marines or Law Enforcement should be able to go invisible for undercover/black ops mode operation. (As an aside, HNs could use the same mechanism to "Declare Nationality" if they so wished).

Afflictions and equipment etc. are going to need these kinds of promos anyway, and they have been done in other mods (eg. Fall From Heaven II), so it might be time..

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This is an excellent idea. Thanks Yudishtira! I think you're absolutely right. It's time to develop an optional status set of promos and a mechanism to switch such statuses. It could probably also handle the submerging process if done right. That would play right back into what we were beginning to consider at the end of last cycle as well. I'll work on that soon.

Faustmouse said:

You mostly want your units to be visbible when you defend something.
Maybe it would be easier to add -2 invisibility per turn to the fortification command;
it would make sense anyways that units that build a defensive structure are more visible than others.

Click to expand...

I like this idea too but it would be better represented through an alternative fortification buildup set of promos. Sometimes you DO want to fortify and remain as hidden as you can, just in case someone does spot you you'll be as ready to fight them if they attack. Having a second, self-revealing fortification method would be quite alright (although I'll have to give some deep thought on how and when the AI would want to be visible when normally invisible.)

However, what I think I need here for these two suggestions, and some other things coming right up anyhow, is a promotion tag that negates all invisibility of the specified type. Shouldn't be difficult. It's to be one of the effects applied to a local criminal when an investigation is successful against him.

Yudishtira said:

You either want to be invisible or you don't. And it doesn't take one or more turns to say "boo" or wave a big flag...

And most often when you want to defend something (at least where these explorer and strike team units are concerned), you are not fortified.

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Right which is why I don't think one or the other is sufficient, both concepts are valid and useful in their own rights.

GREAT suggestions folks!

Yudishtira said:

Consider making most "invisibility" optional, in that the 'invisible' unit can make themselves 'visible' if they so choose.

And if I may mention again the possibility of promos that can be chosen as "missions" ie. action buttons. So a default-invisible unit can pick up a temporary promo to become visible, for as long as it wishes to be so. And maybe a default-visible unit eg. Marines or Law Enforcement should be able to go invisible for undercover/black ops mode operation. (As an aside, HNs could use the same mechanism to "Declare Nationality" if they so wished).

Afflictions and equipment etc. are going to need these kinds of promos anyway, and they have been done in other mods (eg. Fall From Heaven II), so it might be time..

Click to expand...

Missions which provide temporary promotions is a good idea. Where temporary is variable length. It would allow such things as formation promotions which would affect speed of movement and combat. Eg March formation would increase movement but decrease combat strength allowing troops to move quickly in safe territory but expose them to surprise attacks whereas combat formations would slow movement to almost nothing but make the unit difficult to attack. Pie_at uses an assortment of "fortify" style promotions to great effect in his mod. His turn off when you move the unit.