C2C - Units

I have that with the unitcombat breakdown but what I need is really to chart them out by tech and by type (type in this case would be really a matter of their primary unitcombats such as Criminal, Strike Team etc) which would mean that some units would end up showing up in two places. What I need to do is get the land units evaluated in a very similar manner to the Naval Unit review.

I'm building that locally for the healers, law enforcement, criminal, strike team and ruffian units and in the process exposing the gaps I'd like to fill. It also exposes where there are intentional gaps that insist that the player also be strategically adaptive. It's coming along nicely and I can keep building on it with more core military unit types to be added to the review.

This is the First version of the Healer unit review that I've been building onto and adding to but at the moment only locally. I'll update this review on the google doc once I've got these current units under focus fully evaluated.

That said, I'm going to have numerous new units I'll need help with on the graphics. Would you like an early heads up as to what those units are so you and toffer can get working on those?

:

UNIT_WATCHER (Very Early Prehistoric Law Enforcement Unit) Uses its fists as its weapons.

UNIT_EXCILE (Very Early Criminal Unit) Probably uses a staff.

UNIT_ENFORCERS (Mid-Prehistoric Law Enforcement Unit) Uses a club.

UNIT_MEDICINE_MAN (Ancient Medical People Healing unit that upgrades from Healers and to Apothecaries)

UNIT_DOCTOR (Replacing the Surgeon and we're moving the Surgeon further down the tree. Doctors Offices give access to the Doctor.) (UNITCLASS_DR since UNITCLASS_DOCTOR is taken by the GREAT Doctor already.)

UNIT_BURGLAR (An Ancient Criminal upgrade to the Rogue) Uses daggers like Rogues.

UNIT_PATROLS (A Classical Age Law Enforcement Unit) Uses Maces.

UNIT_CUTTHROAT (Criminal/Ruffian Upgrade for the Assassin and for the Bandit Footpad in the Middle Ages) Uses a Dagger and Sword. On foot.

UNIT_SCOUNDREL (Criminal Upgrade to the Cutthroat in the Renaissance (opens up at Political Philosophy and Matchlock)) Uses a crude pistol and Scimitar. On foot.

UNIT_GUNFIGHTER (Criminal Upgrade to the Scoundrel at Rifling - Highwaymen and Outlaws are going to be adjusted to Ruffian Units. So this makes the Gunfighter something more directly opposing the Sheriff.)

UNIT_THUGS (Criminal Upgrade to Gunfighter - an Industrial Era bully criminal.)

UNIT_ROBBER (Criminal Upgrade to the Mobster Car - as in Bank Robber. A 50s/60s getaway driver.)

UNIT_POLICE_HELICOPTER (Nuff' said. The Ghetto Bird.)

UNIT_SMUGGLER (A border hopping 70s/80s Criminal Upgrade to the Robber)

UNIT_GANGSTER (As in Urban Gang banger. 90s/00's Gang Member type)

UNIT_MEDICAL_LAB_TECH (We could put him in a vehicle that is something of a mobile hospital no larger than a van. He's able to heal nearly anyone right on site by being capable of diagnosing and resolving nearly any medical issue with extremely advanced miniaturized medical equipment. (comes in at Bio-Informatics))

UNIT_SWAT_TEAM (Ultra-Modern Slightly Futuristic Full on Militaristic SWAT teams.)

UNIT_CYBERCRIMINAL (Slightly futuristic mix of Urban Gangbanger and techno-savvy Millennial)

UNIT_TECHNARCHIST (A cybernetic/cyberpunk style criminal as much man as machine - a Criminal for the LATE transhuman era.)


There may still be more to come but this would fill our gaps properly and give us a lot more balance to the mod progression. Stats in development now.
 
For the criminals and law enforcement, I beg you to consider doing them by way of promotions rather than new units. For one thing, the graphics 'bandwidth' once they are transposed into every artstyle would be better 'spent' on other things. The main thing is that the combat mod is built around moving in the direction of differentiating units by their modifiers ie. promotions rather than unit type (in fact Size Matters does this already to a huge degree).

In particular, consider the poor brute. Currently only built because there is absolutely nothing else to do with the hammers, if he could promote (promo free from cheap early buildings) to law enforcer OR criminal with a hefty bonus (100-200%) against the other, he might finally get his mojo back...;)
 
Promotions can't address the large gaps between some stages of those units. However, Promotion adjustments and more to make the system more granular are planned for inclusion as well.

Remember, Size Matters can't let these unit types merge or split because we can't adjust the property modifiers properly. (It MIGHT be doable but terribly overcomplicated to do so.)

I do like the idea of allowing the brute to promote to criminal or law enforcement alternatively to military as well though. I personally love the brute on Size Matters. Pop three out and have a pretty good merged anti-barb unit that promotes into one even better (clubs). (You realize that Brutes have a massive +100% bonus against non-animal barbarians AND are half the cost of stone throwers right? Having half the cost means you can usually build at least three to merge them well before you obsolete them.)

I was thinking of having a LINE for brutes but I'm not sure it'll be necessary. They can play an interesting proto-unit role as they are I think.
 
Promotions can't address the large gaps between some stages of those units. However, Promotion adjustments and more to make the system more granular are planned for inclusion as well.

Is there anything promotions can't do? If you want an assassin to be str 20 because he's now got a musket, just give him an exclusive one-off "+12 strength" promo.

It is even possible for promos to be assigned by missions - like upgrades - without depending on XP. At least, Fall From Heaven II does this for its equipment, spell effect and ship configuration promos.
 
TB, looked at this charts and they quite complicated :)
Maybe Ill do something simplier and legible.
 
WE have already discussed the idea of equipment buttons which means we would have just one spearman unit with different types of spears and armour all the way up to and including the various pike. Thus the type of unit is what they do, spearman = stand and point sticks at, with promotions added on top for equipment. "Stand and point sticks at" being the main function would have the bonus verses all mounted.
 
Is there anything promotions can't do? If you want an assassin to be str 20 because he's now got a musket, just give him an exclusive one-off "+12 strength" promo.

It is even possible for promos to be assigned by missions - like upgrades - without depending on XP. At least, Fall From Heaven II does this for its equipment, spell effect and ship configuration promos.

I suppose you're right but upgrade costs can't be mitigated by smoother transitions that way.
 
I suppose you're right but upgrade costs can't be mitigated by smoother transitions that way.

I am not so sure as I have seen a mod which has armour promotions that you have to pay for. However we may need to redo the units completely. Currently the upgrades are not very clear to me. I would have thought that the unit upgrade would be based on training required not equipment required as it is currently.

Using my oft used example the spearman. Initially they are individuals with a spear standing their ground against a bunch of individual horsemen, ie what will eventually evolve into a mounted charge. Later they become a formation, a Phalanx or Shield Wall, which requires a team of spear men forming a single or double line and moving as a unit. Later again these groups grow huge and you have your Pike squares. The training is the difference in the units, first are just individuals, then a group of individuals working as a small team and then working as a large team. The main tactic is the same to stand and repel a mounted charge. The equipment used are just promotions for armour and weapon material. BtW this is in part what I thought Size Matters was going to be about.
 
It's what the equipment mod will be about for sure. Size Matters is something I plan to use as a platform for building the Nomadic mod onto which is why it took a sudden priority.

And equipment is also another soon approaching aspect. With regard to the units I'm reviewing right now I'm moving them more towards qualifications based on training and/or cultural shifts through the tech tree rather than just the equipments needed.

You do have a good point that we may well be able to shave some things down a bit later on once equipment comes into play BUT we must consider equipment to be most likely carried out as an option rather than a full core mod because not everyone may like how it plays out.

At the moment I not only look at the long term goals of the mod but also at making the current mod the best it can possibly be while we move INTO and setting up for those long term goals. Many times I can simply start with the most urgent apparent bug or imbalance issue and I can build into that so that it sets us up for easier implementation of things like equipment, advanced diseases, poisons, nomadic civs etc.

This current unit review adds units, yes. But it doesn't do so just to give them equipment upgrades and strength upgrades. It also does so so as to give growing technological and social flavor to those unit types AND so that the opening access to promotions accompanies the steps up they take in upgrades. This makes the game much easier to play since you can just go around and take the next appropriate promotion after upgrading your units. Furthermore it allows me to very precisely balance the progression of the property control values.

I have always felt there were some severe gaps in the criminal line in particular and that it doesn't currently have a solid upgrade path through the ages. Additionally, Ruffians is a concept that was never very well filled out.

At the moment, crime and disease control is WAY out of whack forcing far too many units to be created at one portion of the game then suddenly you hit this point where you then have an overwhelming amount of control after an upgrade is opened up. I'd like to have the mod play out in a much smoother fashion and allow more frequent upgrades in both unit and promotion so that the pendulum doesn't swing from 'impossible to control' to 'way too easy' so dramatically.

Along the way, it will be nice to have criminal units fairly correspond in parallel in their abilities to increase crime. And I do plan to also implement what we were talking about a while back regarding Law Enforcement gaining the ability to address Crime units hiding out within cities (and for crime units to be able to develop the skills to avoid this fate).
 
So I am playing a single player game. And I noticed some changes since i have been gone in unit upgrades. Before you could go like this ...

Silnger -> Atlatlist -> Archer

OR

Stone Spearman -> Atlatlist -> Javineer

OR

Stone Spearman -> Atlatlist -> Archer

OR

Slinger -> Atlatlist -> Javineer

But now the only ways are ...

Stone Spearman -> Atlatlist -> Javineer

and

Silnger -> Archer

Why was this changed? Historically the Atlatlist was the precursor to the Bow. This unit and its many upgrade choices should be allowed to remain. That's one of the great things about the atlatlist.
 
We need to reevaluate these cross-class upgrades further too because they are, while historically accurate and logical, really fouling up the AI. The AI builds a unit with an intention for that unit to play a particular role and when it upgrades into a unit that is not good for that role it really messes with things for them. I either need to curb these upgrade chain crossovers (as in stop them entirely) or make the AI understand that there are other options to come than the first to emerge and that it should often not be jumping in with an upgrade immediately if it means the unit's intended AI role shouldn't take it down that path.

That second solution is something that's going to take a significant amount of planning and implementation in the AI coding so I would advise we take notes as to what we WANT possible but move to, for now, eliminate these crossovers until the coding can catch up to them.
 
The AI builds a unit with an intention for that unit to play a particular role and when it upgrades into a unit that is not good for that role it really messes with things for them. I either need to curb these upgrade chain crossovers (as in stop them entirely) or make the AI understand that there are other options to come than the first to emerge and that it should often not be jumping in with an upgrade immediately if it means the unit's intended AI role shouldn't take it down that path.

That second solution is something that's going to take a significant amount of planning and implementation in the AI coding so I would advise we take notes as to what we WANT possible but move to, for now, eliminate these crossovers until the coding can catch up to them.
The reason was very reasonable, indeed. ^^
 
Well if its an AI reason then I can support the reason for not having them that way. I just though maybe it was because someone thought the upgrade was a downgrade. Ok i shall leave it alone if the AI is having trouble.
The problem is that the AI currently doesn't evaluate from multiple possible upgrades. It assumes if it CAN upgrade, it should. So when an upgrade possibility comes up that it really shouldn't select to use, it's not smart enough to know better and wait for an alternative that shall come. And that's hard to teach them because, for one thing, how far out should they look for possible alternatives? That's a lot to process for an AI.
 
I have a very special request. We need artwork for a Great Aviator. The 2d button is something we COULD (though Sparth is the best at making these unified) do but more importantly now we need some help with the 3d art portion. Can anyone on the team help provide that for me? It's time for this step to get implemented - been something I've been needing to do for a long time but a current project my wife is working on needs it now.
 
The problem is that the AI currently doesn't evaluate from multiple possible upgrades. It assumes if it CAN upgrade, it should. So when an upgrade possibility comes up that it really shouldn't select to use, it's not smart enough to know better and wait for an alternative that shall come. And that's hard to teach them because, for one thing, how far out should they look for possible alternatives? That's a lot to process for an AI.

Thank you. Saves me a bunch of needless discussion.

To this day I never upgrade my stone spear to an atlatl. And Hopefully neither does the AI. It's a side ways step and the "flexibility" is not presented to player nor AI. In fact I prefer/want this particular upgrade side step gone. And while it "may" be historical it's "dumb" in game play. Sorry if I offend but it is.

@Hydro,
The way you had it Hydro the Stone spear was but a shell of what it should of been back then. But now is not. You made stone spear almost worthless, just as mace was for a long time too. Both now have a distinct time and purpose and are used well by the AI.

Not wanting to be harsh on you since you came back Hydro, but I have to say you sure are making a "ton" of demands. Perhaps you need to adapt a bit to the changes?
 
As you noted, Joe, theres more work to be done on that matter. If you want to try to find those cross chain upgrades where the less intended upgrade is likely to be tech qualified before the best usual path and sever them for now, charts done or not that would be helpfull for the AI at least.
 
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