Technical Expertise

[Spillsandstains]

I'm working on a mod where you 'discover' whole blocks of units, for which the lucky recipient has the required technical expertise (a bonus resource). Thus the 'Uncle Sam Industries' holder gets access to loads of jets whilst the holder of the 'Oblomov Research' bonuses gets a MIG-25, a duck, and a steaming samovar, so this is greatly appreciated <------ someone uploads a Tu-160.

The problem I have is limiting the number of extra, tradeable bonuses. With a limited knowledge of coding, it's difficult to both allow a whole civ's cities to build the whole range of a certain 'technology bonus' and require more than two resources . . . so far it's done with special buildings, but I'm not too keen on this - if you declare war on the 'Grenouille Technologie' supplier, you can still pump out Mirage 2000's and Tiger 2 helis, rather than suddenly have to cut a deal with 'Narsi Gmbh', although the few places you can build Mirage 2000's etc are very vulnerable to damage and espionage.

Any ideas or refinements? I reckon I've got another 40 years or so before I snuff it so no hurry.

My Struggle

I've researched it a bit and yes, all these complex war machines were slightly different. It makes the late game more fun and while it doesn't really replicate the absorption of MIG-29's into the 'West' German air force or the sale of F-4's to anyone with a nice face it's a start.
I mean, the US of bleedin A didn't carry on selling hardware to Iran after the Islamic Revolution, did it? They switched to freedom - loving democratic ally Mr Hussein. Never mind, patriots! The Spartans were perfectly happy to cut a deal with the degenerate, despotic Persians as well . . . Finns and the Nazis . . . I just LURVE you humans. You'ld all sell your grannies for thruppence whilst banging on about either the moral neutrality of 'Caveat Emptor' or the ethical position of modern commercial Granny after- sales services. I really like this element in civ, you can supply your worst enemy with rifles just as long as they are battling in your indirect interest, or just to keep them busy.

Apart from the 'I can't yet code for a more than 1 resource prerequisite' problem it's all there really. Tech A gives you Warmonger unit B who can build Building C (like a military academy, or academy) that produces Bonus D. Bonus D allows you to build a set of air and land units and more Building C's (very few more - I can only handle 8 or so civ's on my crap PC), and is tradeable. At present, advanced units require you to build a cheap Depot E that is a prerequisite building (and thus is easily bombed or espionaged), that itself has extensive prerequisites, and costs a bit of maintenance.

A religion/corporation route won't work because these are fixed after a civ has acquired them, even with an 'Inquisitor' add -on, unless you have a long - range inquisitor; but even so, the real - world version is prevention from buying new hardware and spares, not visiting the foreign factory to put the blueprints through the shredder.

An events - type physical resource method has just occurred to me, with the distinct advantage that bonuses on the map are much more vulnerable than intellectual ones, but you lose the fun element of extra building requirements (which, while similar, all have slightly different characteristics, for more fun and also to make the 'better' tech resource holders a bit less useful).

I don't really do balance. I remember reading a mod some fundamentalist bloke had knocked up where "his religion" spread rate was about 3 million %, and all the others caused the plague (or something). 'Cool!' I thought at the time.

'Upgrade to Cruise Missile' is used to switch off unit upgrade paths. I did consider 'upgrade to land unit', because I got annoyed at Horse archers and Galleys being available just because you haven't got an 'Armaments Factory', but i thought this might create problems. I haven't thought about naval units yet ... or state armaments programmes, so that if you don't get a 'technology bonus resource' you can still build CRAP-1 interceptors or whatever. The small size of the games I play means with six different 'technology resource producers' you have 12 'technology bonus resources' anyway. The trick is that jet A and jet A1 aren't equal, and jet A2 comes with another additional technology but is actually slightly weaker than both, but longer - ranged. . . more fun basically. I looked at the online literature and bodged in what I liked. I didn't liked the look of the P-40 - it looked something like an ATHEIST would design - so it has -1000% versus Pea Shooters. Ha!

I love modding, sadly I'm still fleshing out extra civs and unit types (yup, I love epics, so a chalcolithic Warrior With A Sock Full Of Gravel is a distinct advantage over the normal kind, if techs take 50 turns to research but you have fast production rates), and a lot of this could be easily coded - but I haven't got past XML yet! There is resource 1 + building 2 = trade good 3 stuff I've seen, but I REALLY have no idea how to implement it yet and I enjoy the playtesting to be honest! Next month maybe.

Oh yes, and Sherman tanks blow up a lot, like they do in WW2 memoirs. And I named them Hermans. And they upgrade to Munster MBTs. Is a joke, right? First person to laugh receives a special prize unit skin, 'Albanian Line Infantry'. Yes I know they never had any but it's a GAME innit?

[Camikaze]

Perhaps try asking here.

[Spillsandstains]

Thank you, Camikaze