Warlords Patch Suggestions

I've seen a lot of really good discussions recently on traits and UUs and buildings that have led to some really interesting tweak ideas. I thought it might be good to put these all in one place in case the local Firaxians are listening...

These are ones I've presented in various threads. What other tweaks can you recall?

EW
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1) Combine the Guerilla and Woodman promotion lines. Specifically, make this a single promotion that works on all hills/jungle/forest tiles. Having separate lines makes them too specialised to be useful, and reduces the usefulness of the Celtic UU and UB.

2) Improve first strikes. These were nerfed under the old combat model, but since tweaking it, first strikes are much less effective.

3) Give forts new abilities. A) Any tile within your cultural borders that are adjacent to an occupied fort may not be pillaged, and B) Any tile outside your cultural borders that are adjacent to an occupied fort reduce movement for all enemy units to 1.

4) Allow the promotion upgrade to affect all units given XP by a Great General, not just the unit the GG is attached to. Currently, there is a general perception that field generals are a waste, and this would give a new way of using them that has a bit more value.

I completely disagree with #2. Have you faced a city on a hill against longbowman from a Protective leader?

Its ridiculous. On average it takes about 3 catapults to even TOUCH the top Longbowman. Even then, the weakened longbowman have a chance of completely killing an attacker without being damaged further.

In my recent game against Saladin there was 1 remaining longbowman at 4.6/6 health and it took FOUR macemen to kill him (all 7 of my catapults had died in the initial sieging and secondary sieging). Against Protective leaders you need to double your attacking force because it gets torn apart so fast because of the extra drill promotions the longbowman get. I really don't think drill needs a bump up.

i agree with number 4 totally and super enthusiastically.
the rest, i don't really care about.

other than that, just general perfomance improvements.
The original game is working ALOT better on my system than Warlords is, and that annoys me.... if they make it run AT LEAST as good as the bland model, and i'll be happy.

How about letting gunships fly over water, but they will sink if they don't finish on land? Perhaps they could land on carriers too?

I think a few people have suggested this.

Have the patch alter all the original Civ4 maps for use in Warlords.

I know it can be done manually. I'm lazy

And cruise missiles. Bring back cruise missiles!!

Zones of control for forts - if enemy units try to move by the forts, each unit is hit by the appropriate unit of yours for (your unit's number of first strikes +1). Maybe that's too strong, maybe max it out at 3 strikes.

I second the call to combine the guerilla and woodsman upgrades into one - I'd keep the "guerilla" name. They're too situational usually, and the celtic UU and UB really blow.

I'd make a small change to the warlord option: any unit led by a warlord gets the "leadership" promotion for free. That, on top of the 20XP useable for other traits, would make the warlord option more appealing. I'd also up the military academy's unit production bonus to +50% as nobody in their right mind uses that option right now.

Fix the leaderhead shading issues and the performance issues, obviously.

Make the imperialistic settler production bonus affect production based on food as well as hammers.

I'd tweak some unique units and buildings a bit, but obviously it's a matter of opinion about what should be done with what.

Folding woodsman into guerilla and having only the guerilla upgrade (for forest and hills) is a good idea, but it's incomplete.

I'd have the promotion tree look a little something like this:

Guerilla I (+20% defense on hills, +20% defense in forests/jungles) [uses Guerilla I icon]

Leads to:

Guerilla II (+30% defense on hills, +30% defense in forests/jungles) [uses Guerilla II icon]

Leads to:

Guerilla III (+25% attack against hills, +25% attack against forests/jungles) [uses Guerilla III icon]

AND

Wilderness Training (Double movement in hills/forests/jungles.) [uses Woodsmanship I icon]

Explorers could come with Guerilla I and Wilderness Training.

If the name "Wilderness Training" is too long, you can always call it "Bushcraft."

Nerf the preatorians.

^Just give 'em 7 strength, I say. Perhaps give them the swordsman's +10% against cities, which I don't think they have. Makes them more vulnerable in the field while still allowing them to be a terror attacking cities...

Yeah, I agree. 7 with the +10% would be much more reasonable. I'd still be a strong UU, but wouldn't feel so rediculously overpowered.

I, of course, completely disagree. Build Axemen if you're facing them, but don't mess with the praets.

^agreed.
like the guerilla promotion idea, the celtic UU is way too
specialised. why use swordsmen to defend hills?

Do not merge woodsmen and guerrilla, that would make no sense.

Instead, make all the % defense bonuses also offer % attack to such tiles.

Guerrilla III is just silly -- bordering on moronic as Combat I,II,II is currently clearly superior to Guerrilla I,II,II -- get rid of this nonsense.

And give Jaguars free Woodsman I, FFS.

And give jaguars free Woodsman I, FFS.

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give them 6 stregth while theyre at it. who wants a weakened UU?

Dionysius said:

give them 6 stregth while theyre at it. who wants a weakened UU?

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You have much to learn.

Gherald said:

You have much to learn.

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honestly, do you think you are a civ master?
a swordsman unit with 5 attck is weaker than a swordsman unit with 6 attack.
do you see how that works? not needing iron is negligible as an advantage.
what the hell kind of empire are you running when that is an advantage?

Dionysius said:

honestly, do you think you are a civ master?
a swordsman unit with 5 attck is weaker than a swordsman unit with 6 attack.
do you see how that works? not needing iron is negligible as an advantage.
what the hell kind of empire are you running when that is an advantage?

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Speaking from my experience, 3 out of 5 games, I won't have one of either Iron or Copper nearby. 1 out of 5 I won't have either nearby. That gives me about 1 in 5 games that I actually will have both resources. Early resourceless UUs I find to be quite useful.

Bah. Jaguars blow hard. I don't care if they're a little cheaper than traditional swords or require no metal resources. That's only a factor in fairly few games, and there's no reason to use them above city raider axemen anyways. What a crappy unique unit. If they were strength 6 and costed the same as swordsmen while requiring no metal resources and kept their crappy jungle defense (I'd prefer woodsman I, myself), then they'd be a poor unique unit. Still, that's better than a crappy one. I don't want to play a civ that makes a basic unit worse as my unique unit.