[BTS] UN Peacekeeping Forces [Modular] - As Requested

Nice work.
Some more work should be done into how it works, I'd connect this to being a UN member and defying resolutions and such.

Also, IMO the helicopters carrying capacity is too big now.

Not sure if this was mentioned, But I think there should be a limit to the number of these Units you can build.

If you are going to limit their construction to 1 Civ. Your giving that Civ an incredible advantage. Essentially you can move These Units onto Key Resources of an Rival who you are at peace with, Declare War, and the Rival is cut off from resources. Then invade with Normal Units.

Thats what I would do anyway. Not use them as "Peacekeepers", Use them as a hybrid Spy/Special Forces unit that can effectivly give the attacker a HUGE advantage in a conflict.

Also for what its worth. I believe that if the unit appears as a barbarian (Hidden Nationality), then they can be attacked (by Ally's, or Rivals), the AI will think its a Barbarian, regardless if you are at peace with them or not. (Thats the point of Hidden Nationality). IMO, they should not have Hidden Nationality. UN Peacekeepers always have a flag patch on their arm of their home nation. I assume you can set them to "explore rival territory", like Explorers/Caravels, but they wouldn't be able to "block".

I like the Idea, I just think it would be hard to implement. I thought for a while that the UN can be represented as a Corporation. (Having the UN Headquarters Found It), and have it spread via a "Diplomat" But again, As the founding Nation why would you want to give another nation the ability to produce a unit that IMO is overpowered.

Edgecrusher said:

Not sure if this was mentioned, But I think there should be a limit to the number of these Units you can build.

If you are going to limit their construction to 1 Civ. Your giving that Civ an incredible advantage. Essentially you can move These Units onto Key Resources of an Rival who you are at peace with, Declare War, and the Rival is cut off from resources. Then invade with Normal Units.

Thats what I would do anyway. Not use them as "Peacekeepers", Use them as a hybrid Spy/Special Forces unit that can effectivly give the attacker a HUGE advantage in a conflict.

Also for what its worth. I believe that if the unit appears as a barbarian (Hidden Nationality), then they can be attacked (by Ally's, or Rivals), the AI will think its a Barbarian, regardless if you are at peace with them or not. (Thats the point of Hidden Nationality). IMO, they should not have Hidden Nationality. UN Peacekeepers always have a flag patch on their arm of their home nation. I assume you can set them to "explore rival territory", like Explorers/Caravels, but they wouldn't be able to "block".

I like the Idea, I just think it would be hard to implement. I thought for a while that the UN can be represented as a Corporation. (Having the UN Headquarters Found It), and have it spread via a "Diplomat" But again, As the founding Nation why would you want to give another nation the ability to produce a unit that IMO is overpowered.

Click to expand...

I thought about this, but it's all a matter of strategy. Obviously, building a bunch of UN units will force you to NOT build regular units. That still leaves you with a huge disadvantage if you are attacked with overwhelming force. In testing, I found that UN units aren't really the best units to have--hence, the reason why are cheap to build. Because they cannot attack, they are significantly worse than regular units of the same type that CAN attack.

I believe they are balanced as is, though I am considering the removal of "Hidden Nationality". I will run further tests on the theory.

As for your comment on making the UN a corporation... I was thinking the same thing, but then I realized that they really don't function quite like that. The last thing I want is for the UN to show up in your corporation screen. I don't know enough SDK to implement a special design to add windows and such. What I will be doing is the following:

1. The United Nations builds Diplomat
2. Diplomat builds UN Mission
3. UN Mission builds UN Peacekeeping Forces

I will be recoloring the Corporate HQ to represent the UN Missions. I will attempt to limit them to capital cities--though this may take some skill beyond what I have.

As for your comment on WHY you might want to spread the UN around... I will be attempting to implement a culture bonus for every UN Mission founded that is added to the city that holds The United Nations wonder. Also, I would eventually like to see a possibly permanent increase in attitude from that Civ towards you. Besides that, maybe you've vassalized a nation and you want them to assist you in making these little guys.

If anyone would like to help me make a working mod of this on the SDK, and have knowledge of how to code, please contact me ASAP so we can work this out! Anyone is welcome to participate in this project. Being that these units drastically affect the way the late game is played, I'm sure that many will be interested in downloading. Your name will be most definitely credited!

Thanks for the interest.


UPDATE:
I've basically been able to do everything I just talked about further up in this post except for one thing: Allow the UN Mission's construction in another Civ's city! Right now, you can establish a UN Mission in your own capital, but that's obviously not the point. If someone knows how to add code allowing you construct buildings in rival cities, please let me know so I can get your help on how to do this!

Here are some pics:

1. Out in the field
2. In the Civilopedia

Feel free to chime in on what I have so far.

More and more, I'm beginning to think all I can really do is allow you to maybe gift diplomats since the SDK may be too difficult right now. Please, if you can help, it would be greatly appreciated. From what I understand, it's a quick fix where I would simply need one building change it's function to allow building in another Civ's city. I know of nothing quite like that in the game.

avain said:

Nice work.
Some more work should be done into how it works, I'd connect this to being a UN member and defying resolutions and such.

Also, IMO the helicopters carrying capacity is too big now.

Click to expand...

Hmm, this might help a bit. Do you know what to do to make Civs "UN Members"? I'm trying to use a unit to create a building. I would prefer not to use a corporation system since I don't want it to actually be a corporation. If you know anything about SDK, please help on this!

Couldn't you have the diplomat spread the UN, like a corp or religion, and then create a building (call it UN mission and make it be cheap to build if you want), like religious ones, that is tied to the UN presence? The AI would have to choose to build the building if you spread the UN to it's city, but if you make it cheap, it's a forgone conclusion it will do it.

If I understand correctly, The Corporations Screen in the CityView/F5 (Or whatever teh F Key is) is set to show 7 corporations. I believe that unless you edit the Corporation Screen, The symbol wont appear.

With that said, you can make having the UN Corporation as a req to build the UN Units/ say an Ambassitor/Diplomat, which would be the unit to spread it.

I think that, using the UN as a Corp would also make it easy to add in a "bonus" for the founder to spread it to rival civs, because currently, and I know I mentioned this before, I don't see a reasion. Giving the City w/ the HQ +1 Gold/Culture or Raw Commerce, or something for that matter. Even that Benefit is kind of low, not large enough to warrent giving the ability of these units to a rival, friendly or not.
I know its your mod, but I still feel the concept of the units, Cheaper to prodoce then the "normal" units, and they have the ability to explore/enter rival territory? That ability alone should make the more expensive. I understand they cannot attack in the traditional sense, but they are strong enough to defend and have the ability to infiltrate and sever a supply to a vital resource (Oil, Aluminium, Uranium)

I do like the concept of having the ability tyed into being a member. Considering the point of the UN (in reality), is to mediate disputes peacefully. But that would require SDK work, because I am not sure what constitutes being a member, I was always under the impression everyone was a member.

I think the hardest thing, is the UN is ment to be made up of all member nations, in civ, it is kind of represented by the founder, who will ultimitly have an alteriar motive.

phungus420 said:

Couldn't you have the diplomat spread the UN, like a corp or religion, and then create a building (call it UN mission and make it be cheap to build if you want), like religious ones, that is tied to the UN presence? The AI would have to choose to build the building if you spread the UN to it's city, but if you make it cheap, it's a forgone conclusion it will do it.

Click to expand...

Yes, but how would I account for this:

The United Nations showing up as either a corporation or a religion in the corporation or religion window

I'm taking a look at some more XML files... And I think I can try something like this:

1. The UN Diplomat is the only unit that The United Nations allows.
2. Limit the spread of the "UN Religion/Corporation" by the UN Diplomat to the capital city (including the player's own)*
3. Thusly, you can only ever have that one city with said religion/corporation
4. And having said religon/corporation, be the only city in that Civ with the ability to construct the UN Mission
5. And with the UN Mission, they would be able to produce UN Units (other than the UN Diplomat)

So other than that one concern, it might be viable. Will look further into this...

UPDATE:
*Apparently, there is no way to limit it to one city. So my other concern is how can you limit it to being built more in more than one city of the particular Civ?

You could always have the UN Mission require that the Palace be in the city it is built.

That way, it can only be built in the capital, regardless of how many cities the UN Corp/Religion has spread to. Remember limiting the construction of the Diplomat to the founder of the UN, your counting on the founder to a Rival's Capital.

also not sure if you saw this, but if you dont edit the screens, I dont believe they realign themselves to account for a new religion/Corp, an 8th one wouldnt appear.

Looking through the XML, I came across a possible theory for making the UN Peacekeeping Forces less of a single player monopoly, as we have been discussing. Try to follow along:

1. The United Nations Charter is a project that only one Civ can have.
2. a. Once built, this allows the construction of The UN Headquarters (formerly named "The United Nations") wonder which
b. And the construction of the UN Mission, of which every Civ can have only one.
3. Constructing The UN Headquarters has the normal function as the original wonder plus the ability to construct the UN Diplomat
4. Constructing a UN Mission provides that city with the ability to construct UN Peacekeeping Forces Units (the ones that have been released as of this post)

Any thoughts?


UPDATE:
Apparently, adding projects to the game causes some very screwy stuff. As such, I have decided to instead do the following:

1. Mass Media enables construction of The United Nations and UN Missions.
2. All Peacekeeping units now require UN Missions, which can only be built in the capital, of which there can only be one per Civ.
3. The United Nations remains as the wonder it was with the exception it allows construction of the UN Diplomat, whose purpose is currently to add Espionage Points like the Great Spy (though in much smaller quanitities)

I think you will all find this to be most balanced.

Edgecrusher said:

You could always have the UN Mission require that the Palace be in the city it is built.

That way, it can only be built in the capital, regardless of how many cities the UN Corp/Religion has spread to. Remember limiting the construction of the Diplomat to the founder of the UN, your counting on the founder to a Rival's Capital.

also not sure if you saw this, but if you dont edit the screens, I dont believe they realign themselves to account for a new religion/Corp, an 8th one wouldnt appear.

Click to expand...

Ultimately, the problem with that is that you cannot stop the AI from possibly spamming UN Diplomats for the bonus.

Read my latest post on a new theory I have!

Well.. just throwing this out there, but why not remove the UN HQ as the prerequisite for these units and instead make training these units based on whether you're the current Secretary General?

Then you could have each new Secretary General gain control over all current UN peacekeeping units and control of the training of new ones. That way, there's at least the danger that if you lose control of the seat, then your rival will gain control of the massive force you've trained.

Could also make for interesting options with the Apostolic Palace as well.

Dom Pedro II said:

Well.. just throwing this out there, but why not remove the UN HQ as the prerequisite for these units and instead make training these units based on whether you're the current Secretary General?

Then you could have each new Secretary General gain control over all current UN peacekeeping units and control of the training of new ones. That way, there's at least the danger that if you lose control of the seat, then your rival will gain control of the massive force you've trained.

Could also make for interesting options with the Apostolic Palace as well.

Click to expand...

Wow, nice idea! Glad to see a vet like you chiming in! I'll definitely look into that.

Here is a sneak peak at what's to come. This is a beta version that you are free to try out. Currently, the Mass Media Tech allows the construction of the UN Mission, which allows the construction of all UN units. The United Nations wonder remains untouched.

View attachment UNForces.rar

Here are two more units customized to act as UN units. Possibly one more unit, the UN Tank, is coming.

Updates!

Consolidated ModComp now available for download. Currently not in the downloads section.

Cool mod!
So, if I wanted to enable the units to attack as well would I only have to change the following line in the CIV4UnitInfos.XML files? :

<bOnlyDefensive>0</bOnlyDefensive>

Thorn said:

Cool mod!
So, if I wanted to enable the units to attack as well would I only have to change the following line in the CIV4UnitInfos.XML files? :

<bOnlyDefensive>0</bOnlyDefensive>

Click to expand...

well, yes, but that would ultimately defeat the purpose of this mod.

Indeed. UN Peacekeeping Forces should defend, but not attack. Otherwise they're like any other civ. (Unless you want to have barbarian-type UN forces...)

surdanis
I will add your mod into my)) Thx, good work.