Vokarya's Workshop: Units

45°38'N-13°47'E;12890080 said:

I believe there's a problem with Ram: I don't think it's meant to have the "Can only defend" tag. I can't do anything with it: I can't bombard and I can't attack. Can you check your version Vokarya?

Edit: I'm talking about the first Ram; I know it's not in this thread but it looked like the right thread.

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My Rams work just fine for bombarding, and I've still got the Can Only Defend tag turned on. They aren't supposed to be able to range bombard -- they just reduce city defenses. See screenshots.

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Vokarya said:

My Rams work just fine for bombarding, and I've still got the Can Only Defend tag turned on. They aren't supposed to be able to range bombard -- they just reduce city defenses. See screenshots.

View attachment 364546View attachment 364547View attachment 364548

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Sorry, my fault, it was a change I've made and I forgot to revert.

Cog and Galleass shouldn't have a <iMinAreaSize> tag equal to 20 like caravels? Otherwise you can still build them in Modern Era on lakes, which doesn't sound good to me. What do you think Vokarya?

45°38'N-13°47'E;12949071 said:

Cog and Galleass shouldn't have a <iMinAreaSize> tag equal to 20 like caravels? Otherwise you can still build them in Modern Era on lakes, which doesn't sound good to me. What do you think Vokarya?

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You're right. We can fix it in the next revision.

I'm going to clean the screenshots out of this thread, as I'm starting to run low on attachment space and everything I have posted here is in the v666 revision.

I was thinking of a couple of unit upgrade paths that we should include in the next revision.

First, I think Modern Infantry should be allowed to upgrade to Special Infantry as well as Mechanized Infantry. The current main city defense line goes Warrior-Slinger-Archer-Longbowman-Arquebusier-Musketman-Rifleman-Infantry-Modern Infantry and then breaks the pattern with Mechanized Infantry, because as a Tracked unit, Mech Inf cannot gain City Garrison promotions. Also, I would probably never use Walker Mech as a main city garrison unit because of its +2 cost per turn. Special Infantry is just as effective without the extra gold per turn. I do use Walker Mechs as offensive units, as I generally have some units that get upgraded all the way from Swordsmen. Those units get disbanded once the last AI is eliminated, so it's not that bad. (I generally prefer a mostly infantry army as my stacks need to stay together to protect the siege units.)

Second, none of the Doomsday units upgrade at all, so that leaves a lot of old units on the build lists. I think A-Bomb should upgrade to Tactical Nuke or MRBM (MRBM offers pure upgrades over the A-Bomb) and ICBM should upgrade to Hydrogen Bomb (both are unlimited-range nukes, but Hydrogen Bomb has nuke radius 2 over ICBM's 1).

On a related note, is it necessary for the A-Bomb to be a Bomber unit? All the rest of the nuclear units are Doomsday. The Bomber classification seems to only give it access to Air promotions (which are not all that useful as the unit is consumed on use) and allow it to conduct Air Strike and Recon missions - but with only 1 Strength, an Air Strike won't do much and I doubt anyone would want to use an A-Bomb for Recon.

Vokarya said:

Second, none of the Doomsday units upgrade at all, so that leaves a lot of old units on the build lists. I think A-Bomb should upgrade to Tactical Nuke or MRBM (MRBM offers pure upgrades over the A-Bomb) and ICBM should upgrade to Hydrogen Bomb (both are unlimited-range nukes, but Hydrogen Bomb has nuke radius 2 over ICBM's 1).

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I'd say it's ok to upgrade A-Bomb to MRBM, but I'm against upgrading ICBM to Hydrogen Bomb. They're somehow different weapons because of their hit radius; I guess the same could apply to A-Bomb since it has radius 1; I sometime keep some A-Bomb just because of the small radius to pick a single square, but then again I can simply decide not to upgrade an A-Bomb if I still plan to use it (that is, if I'm able to clear the sky from enemy fighters before using it). And there's something else; all of these nukes are available only if you use Advanced Nukes, I guess (which I always use).

Vokarya said:

On a related note, is it necessary for the A-Bomb to be a Bomber unit? All the rest of the nuclear units are Doomsday. The Bomber classification seems to only give it access to Air promotions (which are not all that useful as the unit is consumed on use) and allow it to conduct Air Strike and Recon missions - but with only 1 Strength, an Air Strike won't do much and I doubt anyone would want to use an A-Bomb for Recon.

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I guess so, if I remember correctly it was done for graphical reasons; in my view, it can stay this way (and that +1 Operational Range promotion is useful for A-Bomb).

Edit: I'm totally with you about Infantry changes.

45°38'N-13°47'E;12988244 said:

I'd say it's ok to upgrade A-Bomb to MRBM, but I'm against upgrading ICBM to Hydrogen Bomb. They're somehow different weapons because of their hit radius; I guess the same could apply to A-Bomb since it has radius 1; I sometime keep some A-Bomb just because of the small radius to pick a single square, but then again I can simply decide not to upgrade an A-Bomb if I still plan to use it (that is, if I'm able to clear the sky from enemy fighters before using it). And there's something else; all of these nukes are available only if you use Advanced Nukes, I guess (which I always use).

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OK. I looked through the XML and Tactical Nuke is not an Advanced Nuke; that's why I offered the option of both. Should we maybe lower the Tac Nuke to radius 0, so it really is a Tactical weapon?

Vokarya said:

OK. I looked through the XML and Tactical Nuke is not an Advanced Nuke; that's why I offered the option of both. Should we maybe lower the Tac Nuke to radius 0, so it really is a Tactical weapon?

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You're right, ICBM and Tactical Nukes are in default BTS; lowering TN radius to 0, should be ok. I'm going to check if it doesn't cause any trouble because I think I remember that nukeradius value was used somewhere.

45°38'N-13°47'E;12988389 said:

You're right, ICBM and Tactical Nukes are in default BTS; lowering TN radius to 0, should be ok. I'm going to check if it doesn't cause any trouble because I think I remember that nukeradius value was used somewhere.

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Let me know what you find. I have some more building chains to propose, and I think I can get the Spaceport and Starport ready without too much trouble, and then I might be close to an SVN update.

Vokarya said:

Let me know what you find.

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Ok, it looks like there should be no troubles; anyway since it's an easy xml change, it's not so critical, so go on Vokarya.

As for Submarine Warfare needing a boost like you pointed out in your Brainstorming thread, what about this?

So I was looking at unit types, and I have a question: is the Supersonic Units category really necessary? We have two units in the Jet Fighter category (the P59 and the Jet Fighter) and two units in the Supersonic Units category (the Strike Fighter F15 and the Modern Fighter F35). Nowhere else in the code do these unit categories matter: there isn't any unit that gets a bonus or penalty against one of these categories but not the other. I was thinking we should put all four of these units in the Jet Fighter category and just get rid of the Supersonic category. What do you think?

In the last SVN, I added a change to allow Modern Infantry to upgrade to Special Infantry as well as Mechanized Infantry. One thing that I didn't change was drafting; I'd like to pull the draft ability away from Mech Inf and Walker Mech and move that over to Special Infantry. After Modern Infantry, the drafting list goes Mechanized Infantry - Walker Mech - EMP SAM Infantry - Scout Mech - Assault Mech, and I really don't think Mechs should be draftable. Instead the line should just go from Modern Infantry to Special Infantry and stop. Drafting should be a way to get emergency defensive units, not offensive. Then, without Mechanized Infantry in the main city defense line, add a requirement of Oil Products or Biofuels; I think like tank units, you should need fuel to run Mechanized Infantry.

Related to that: we have an Iron requirement on the Bombard and Cannon, and Oil Products on the very late Siege units, but nothing in the middle. I would like to add a Steel resource requirement to the Light Artillery and Artillery units. It feels wrong to have absolutely no resource requirements on those units.

Vokarya said:

So I was looking at unit types, and I have a question: is the Supersonic Units category really necessary? We have two units in the Jet Fighter category (the P59 and the Jet Fighter) and two units in the Supersonic Units category (the Strike Fighter F15 and the Modern Fighter F35). Nowhere else in the code do these unit categories matter: there isn't any unit that gets a bonus or penalty against one of these categories but not the other. I was thinking we should put all four of these units in the Jet Fighter category and just get rid of the Supersonic category. What do you think?

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Is there a reason to remove that category? I mean, if it's not causing any trouble, I would leave that in place because I'm not sure it wouldn't cause any unforeseen problem. For example I don't remember if it's something related to units or to Supersonic Flight tech, but from a certain point onwards air units can rebase everywhere in the world, with an unlimited range. I would avoid changing things that are not necessary or not definetely broken.

Vokarya said:

In the last SVN, I added a change to allow Modern Infantry to upgrade to Special Infantry as well as Mechanized Infantry. One thing that I didn't change was drafting; I'd like to pull the draft ability away from Mech Inf and Walker Mech and move that over to Special Infantry. After Modern Infantry, the drafting list goes Mechanized Infantry - Walker Mech - EMP SAM Infantry - Scout Mech - Assault Mech, and I really don't think Mechs should be draftable. Instead the line should just go from Modern Infantry to Special Infantry and stop. Drafting should be a way to get emergency defensive units, not offensive. Then, without Mechanized Infantry in the main city defense line, add a requirement of Oil Products or Biofuels; I think like tank units, you should need fuel to run Mechanized Infantry.

Related to that: we have an Iron requirement on the Bombard and Cannon, and Oil Products on the very late Siege units, but nothing in the middle. I would like to add a Steel resource requirement to the Light Artillery and Artillery units. It feels wrong to have absolutely no resource requirements on those units.

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Sounds good to me.

45°38'N-13°47'E;13003140 said:

Is there a reason to remove that category? I mean, if it's not causing any trouble, I would leave that in place because I'm not sure it wouldn't cause any unforeseen problem. For example I don't remember if it's something related to units or to Supersonic Flight tech, but from a certain point onwards air units can rebase everywhere in the world, with an unlimited range. I would avoid changing things that are not necessary or not definetely broken.

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I was trying to simplify things a little. I feel like there is some cruft around this mod that could be pruned back a bit for the sake of making things easier to understand. I don't think the game ever cares about whether or not a specific unit class is included -- that makes adding and removing classes easier. I searched through the Sources files and I didn't see a reference to any particular unit combat type anywhere, so I think this could be cut out and not lose anything.

The "rebase anywhere" ability is set by its own XML flag, <bRebaseAnywhere> which as you correctly noted is placed at the Supersonic Flight tech, but it doesn't necessarily have to be. We could give that ability at Mysticism if we wanted to.

Vokarya said:

I was trying to simplify things a little. I feel like there is some cruft around this mod that could be pruned back a bit for the sake of making things easier to understand. I don't think the game ever cares about whether or not a specific unit class is included -- that makes adding and removing classes easier. I searched through the Sources files and I didn't see a reference to any particular unit combat type anywhere, so I think this could be cut out and not lose anything.

The "rebase anywhere" ability is set by its own XML flag, <bRebaseAnywhere> which as you correctly noted is placed at the Supersonic Flight tech, but it doesn't necessarily have to be. We could give that ability at Mysticism if we wanted to.

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Then it's ok to me, I've done a quick search and I confirm what you've said.

One of the things that I want to work on in the future more is units. I've been looking at ways to compare units and make sure that units appearing at the same time are equally useful, and I think there are a few issues with unit strengths that I would like to change a little. Here's what I am looking to change.

Archer: +1 Strength with Warfare (base Strength 4, 5 with Mathematics)
Archers have to carry the bulk of city defense throughout most of the Ancient and the entire Classical Era until Longbows and Crossbows come along in the Medieval Era. I don't think 4 Strength is enough for that, so I'd like to give them 1 more point throughout the Classical Era. I think Warfare is good because it's right at the tail end of the Ancient Era.

War Elephant: Additional +1 Strength with Siege Warfare and Armored Cavalry (base Strength 10 with Siege Warfare, 12 with Armored Cavalry)
War Elephants stay on the build lists until the Bombardier Elephant comes along at Gunpowder. However, I think once you hit the Medieval Era, War Elephants aren't really worth building as they are so overshadowed by later units. In regular BTS, War Elephants have a fair chance to take out a Knight, and I think that should be possible in AND as well, so giving them more strength in the Medieval Era would be a good thing.

Cuirassier: -3 Strength, +3 Strength with Flintlock (base Strength 18, 21 with Flintlock)
Before I revised the Tech Tree, Cavalry Tactics came after Flintlock, and Cuirassiers had to deal with Musketmen. After revisions, Cavalry Tactics is before Flintlock, and I think 21 Strength is a bit much for Arquebusiers to deal with. So I think we should take them down a bit in Strength at first, and then restore them to full Strength with Flintlock.

Grenadier: +4 Strength (base Strength 22); also can upgrade from Musketman.
Grenadier units are supposed to coexist with Rifleman until they both upgrade at Automatic Weapons. However, Grenadiers with Strength 18 are totally eclipsed by Riflemen at Strength 26 (the odds are in favor of the Rifleman, even with the Grenadier's +25% attack vs. Rifleman). Giving Grenadiers a little bit higher Strength would make them viable. I also think of Grenadiers as the extension of the Swordsman line of city-attack troops, and I would like to let City-Raider Swordsmen eventually upgrade to City-Raider Grenadiers.

Rifleman: +2 Strength with Repeating Weapons (new Strength 28)
The Repeating Weapons tech doesn't do anything for your basic ground troops. Right now, the only ground unit you get is the Machine Gun. While I don't think we need a new unit here, I would like to give Riflemen a Strength bonus.

Another thing that's always bothered me is the Flanking promotions on Light Cavalry units. I don't think that units should start with a promotion unless either the promotion is going to carry through the entire unit line (like all Tank units have Blitz) or the unit is a UU or other special unit (which encourages building them). I think we should increase the base withdraw to 25% and then delete the promotions.

Very good Vokarya, looks like you really have good eye for details