Warlord unit, an control of units, expanded poll

[peter450]

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=244687

basically someone pointed out that the poll was too narrow on this, and on looking at it it was so this is an expanded poll

[Spearthrower]

Ok.... now I can vote!

I voted for option 3. This is something that I talked about in 1 thread at great length.

Basically I think the GG attached to a troop should be able to follow 2 paths.

Path 1: The Warlord... This guy is a Conan, all about personal strength and gets some immediate decent boosts for that - further, his promotions are all geared to personal attack bonus on certain terrains/def and atk against troop type/commando promotions etc. This guy has windows of opportunity which makes him strong, but overall, it's more for fun and occasional rampages - he's not going to win the war alone.

Path 2: The General..... This guy gets no personal attack promotions, but gains the option for a series of promotions that affect the stack of troops he is with - perhaps limited to a certain number in that stack and a promotion that increases the number. These promotions have various benefits such as +atk/+def/lower collateral damage/+movement/free supply etc etc (lots of possibilities here). The downside is that it is not easy for him to gain experience - he is, for all intents and purposes, a normal troop.

Both paths open up promotions unavailable anywhere else.

[Diamondeye]

I voted option number two, simply because I find that a GG-attach dies too much - even at incomperable odds. Have you lost your lvl 6 Infantry with CI-V, Pinch and Ambush guarding a forested hill to an unpromoted rifleman before, with full health and without taking down any attackes first? !

[jimbob27]

2+3 for me.

Choosing defenders in the stack when there's a general present would be good, because at the moment GG's are just too vunerable. I use them as super-medics, but thats pretty much it.

[Diamondeye]

Originally Posted by Diamondeye

I voted option number two, simply because I find that a GG-attach dies too much - even at incomperable odds. Have you lost your lvl 6 Infantry with CI-V, Pinch and Ambush guarding a forested hill to an unpromoted rifleman before, with full health and without taking down any attackes first? !

I just realized what I said here - meaning a GG can assign defenders is actually pretty overpowered - and would definately slow down multiplaying aswell. Imagine you have a stack of 3 muskets and 3 maces. You are attacking two crossbows and 3 axemen. During normal circumstances, you would be able to kill off the crossbows with the muskets and then proceed as the computer simply finds the defender with the best odds - in this case the crossbows as they simply are stronger. Now try where you can assign defenders. Your enemy is attacking with a musket, what do you want to defend with: A crossbow with a 10-15% chance of victory or a axeman for even lower odds - possibly certain suicide? If you know the enemy has maces in their back hand, you would probably suicide the axes as the odds are too small anyway, but this will actually give you a fair shot at the maces, as crossbows have 6 +50% = 9 versus the maces' 8. This would actually make it useful to carry "slaughtering lambs" from past eras in your stacks with GGs...

Hope I did make myself clear :P

A solution could simply be a question like "Do you want Lysander (Great General) to participate in the defense this turn?" or "-against this attacker (War Elephant)?

[peter450]

Well if you are defending with a warlord stack, you can indeed, sacrifice your axes, to avoid loosing your crossbows, in the scenario you quoted, however you have still lost 3 units, the attack may stop there as the attacker wants to keep his maces, your options now are to counterattack with your crossbows, which may or may not succeed depending on how damaged the musketmen are an what kind of terrain the enemy stack is on, or withdraw, the overall result is still a loosing one for you, but having the GG there gives you more flexibilty in defense, it will let you plan a more tactical defense that will preserve more of your units in certain situations, the axe/cross stack wont win vs the mace/musket one but if your stack is lead by a warlord you have a chance to organise your defence along a line that might allow you to preserve some of it, in effect a fighting withdrawl were some units are sacrificed in order to allow the rest of the army to escape, these are the kind of tactic's great generals have employed to win victories or live to fight another day, the abilty to call your defensive shots means this aspect of warfare is represented in the game mechanic.

There would of course need to be an option in multiplayer to turn this on or off, depending on player preferance

[peter450]

Originally Posted by Diamondeye

I voted option number two, simply because I find that a GG-attach dies too much - even at incomperable odds. Have you lost your lvl 6 Infantry with CI-V, Pinch and Ambush guarding a forested hill to an unpromoted rifleman before, with full health and without taking down any attackes first? !

yes this can be annoying, there are ways around this within the games current mechanics though you might need to hold back on some promotions etc but it's certainly possible to have a GG survive an entrie game while seeing plenty of action

[Spiceweasel]

Keep in mind that Civ4 was designed to have consistent mechanics between single and multiplayer games. Allowing the defender to choose a unit for each and every attack would completely bog down multiplayer games. A single battle could take a decent portion of an hour.

Giving players control sounds nice in principle, but there are times when you're just bogging them down with more micromanagement, rather than enhancing gameplay.

Consider this, too: If this feature were implemented, there would be no way for the computer to predict your combat odds. As experienced players, this might not sound like a big deal to you, but it would make the game incredibly frustrating to anyone trying to learn the game in the first place. It would be hard to learn how good a unit is in a particular situation, or which promotions best fit for some situation.

The current rule - attacker chooses a unit, defender matches with the best against it - was very well thought out, in my opinion. It offers a great deal of strategic control, while maintaining streamlined gameplay.

Besides - I suggest that if you have big problems with the "wrong" defender being chosen often, you're not assembling your armies or choosing your promotions correctly.

[Krikkitone]

^ I agree, keep the computer defending units

However, I voted for the other option (3) because I think that is needed to make them worthwhile

I would have it work like this

If a unit is in a stack with a Leader, then any promotion that
1. The Leader has
2. The unit could promote to (their type allows it and they have the prerequisite promotions)

The unit gets the benefit of that promotion. So a Leader with CG 1-3
Macemen get no benefit
unpromoted Longbowmen get the benefit of CG1
Longbowmen with CG1 get the benefit of CG 2 as well
Lbm. with CG 2 get the benefit of CG 3 as well
Lbm. with CG 3 get no benefit.

[BYC]

I voted to keep the game exactly the same.

[peter450]

Originally Posted by Spiceweasel

Keep in mind that Civ4 was designed to have consistent mechanics between single and multiplayer games. Allowing the defender to choose a unit for each and every attack would completely bog down multiplayer games. A single battle could take a decent portion of an hour.

Giving players control sounds nice in principle, but there are times when you're just bogging them down with more micromanagement, rather than enhancing gameplay.

Consider this, too: If this feature were implemented, there would be no way for the computer to predict your combat odds. As experienced players, this might not sound like a big deal to you, but it would make the game incredibly frustrating to anyone trying to learn the game in the first place. It would be hard to learn how good a unit is in a particular situation, or which promotions best fit for some situation.

The current rule - attacker chooses a unit, defender matches with the best against it - was very well thought out, in my opinion. It offers a great deal of strategic control, while maintaining streamlined gameplay.

Besides - I suggest that if you have big problems with the "wrong" defender being chosen often, you're not assembling your armies or choosing your promotions correctly.

Well by having it require a warlord with the tactics promotion your not tying anyone up in extra micro managment who doesn't want to be, and the option to turn it off for multiplayer what solve that issue aswell.

The computer can still give you the odd's, since the computer would insta match whatever defender it wanted an give you the odd's there an then, when defending the computers attacker would be there with whatever odd's it has on your best defender, if you change it, a new sett of odd's will be given, they will of course be worse, but you'l still see them.

It does'nt though it only gives strategic control for the attacker, because he can make choices like suiciding his weakest or near obosolete troops to then give a better chance for his stronger ones, as defender your strategic choice is limited to watching the animations.

Sometimes a stack is'nt well balanced an that can be for any number of factors, not having the resources or time to train a unit for every situation, units have been killed, having multiple damaged units, or your units may simply be outclassed, in situations were your back is to the wall, it makes good tactical sense to suicide weaker troops so they soak up some attacks giving your better troops a chance to live an fight another day, these are the kind of options a great general should provide, a great general should be about advanced tactics, an there's no more advanced tactics than the ones thought up by the human brain, this change is about letting you use it, represented in game by a general giving you a level of control, general less stacks dont have

[Solomwi]

As a defender, you make your strategic choices during your turn before the attack comes, and those choices are myriad. There's nothing wrong with that part of the system.

With option 3, I take it you mean something like what AlazkanAssassin did in his Napoleonic Europe scenario? I loved the idea and implementation of that, and thought it added immensely to the strategic depth of warlord units. I'd love to see that added into the stock game.

[Quildavyr]

Computer should not choose my defenders.Just 5 minutes ago,i got plenty of axemen and chariots in my capital as defender.Shaka has attacked me with his Chariot,and AI picks an axeman as defender.
Shi...t i don want it.

[ViterboKnight]

I'd like another option:

computer will pick the defender for me, but I can set some units to "Never defend".

[Spearthrower]

The AI picks the defender with the best chance of success.... so that Axeman had the best chance of success.... aside from Warlords, I really don't see the value of picking your defender when you are going to make the same choices as the AI anyway.

[Quildavyr]

I want to feed Shaka's Chariot with my Chariot,then kill his Swordsman with my axeman.But no,AI decided to kill my both units.A turn after,there is no way to survive.Just yielding the city.