Fine tuning Attack/Defense characteristics, "reCIV"

Have been experimenting with civedx.exe, basically multiplied attack/defense of all units by ten and then began to fine tune. Outcome: Civ seems to be coping with the "big numbers" well, no crashes, no overflows, the battles work as expected so far, that is after couple of games I've yet to see a glitch.



"reCIV" renergy's civ that is

note: 10 in A/D here equals 1 in original (read 10 as 1.0)

- Settlers: 0/10/2, cost: 5 - giving settlers 2 movement points makes them so much more practical, while not overpowered; and is justified imho - they have wagoons + horses, so can ride, makes sense to me and slightly increasing their cost is what I think makes sense too

note: If you give settlers nonzero attack, they will generate unrest in home city. On the opposite, I've tried to zero the attack of trireme/sail so that they wouldn't generate unrest, but it lead to civ crashing (div by zero).

- Militia: 20/10/1, cost: 1 doubled militia's attack ability
- Phalanx: 10/25/1, cost: 3 more effective defense for higher cost
- Legion: 30/10/1, cost: 2 no change here
- Musketeers: 20/40/1, cost: 3 boosted defense
- Riflemen: 30/50/1, cost: 3 no change
- Cavalry 25/10/3, cost: 2 better movement and slightly higher attack. watch out for barbs!
- Knights 55/25/2, cost: 4 kept movement at 2, since knights are heavy; boosted attack and defense so they stand out from chariots
- Catapult 70/10/1, cost: 4 increased attack by 10 ("=" 1 in orig. stats)
- Cannon 90/10/1, cost: 4 the same as for catapult
- Chariot 33/10/2, cost: 3 perhaps a bit controversial change - chariots were imho overpowered; so weakened their attack to 33 (i.e. 3.3 compared to original 4.0). They are cheaper to build now
- Armor 100/50/4, cost: 10 yes, four movement points; more expensive
- Mech. inf. 70/60/5, cost: 5 five MPs since they are lighter than tanks; slightly boosted attack
- Artillery 120/20/2, cost: 6
- Fighter 50/20/20, cost: 5 twice the MPs
- Bomber 130/10/12, cost: 10
- Trireme 10/0/3, cost: 4
- Sail 10/10/4, cost: 4 increased movement by 1
- Frigate 20/20/4, cost: 4, vis: 3 better visibility for frigate
- Ironclad 60/40/5 boosted attack and increased range
- Cruiser 80/60/10 yes, 10 MPs; also slight increase in attack
- Battleship 180/120/5
- Submarine 80/20/8
- Carrier 20/120/7
- Transport 10/30/8
- Nuclear 230/0/20 - should be renamed ICBMs; highest value in civedx.exe for attack is 231, hence nuclear doesn't/can't have 99*10=990
- Diplomat 0/0/3 - 3 MPs, in line with cavalry - diplomat can afford a horse. This makes him a good scout.
- Caravan 0/10/2 - 2 MPs, makes them much more practical; similar argument as for settlers (drive on camels)


civil0: King Montezuma, Aztecs on Earth map.

civil1: Prince Hammurabi, Babylonians on Earth.
Gave diplomat a slight defense of 2 (read 0.2).

civil2: Prince Caesar, Romans on an island - small/temp/normal/4by random world.
Again, diplomat has defense 2


Enjoy!

Thought the following howto worked, but it does not; just lost my patched civ.exe, will have to manually retype the values again. You live, you learn.

<the following does not work>

how to patch civ.exe:
0) ***BACKUP*** civ.exe (since civedx.exe writes directly into it)
1) run civedx.exe
2) "s" to load from .sve
3) check out/change values if you want, "F10" when finished
4) "u" to patch civ.exe, "y"
5) start new game the usual way

note: the .sve works here as "patch savefile" for civedx.exe

</would be nice if it had>

but it does not, one have to manually retype the values to civedx.exe, even though they are shown correctly after loading from .sve.


"exporting/importing a patch" is clearly what civedx.exe lacks..

civedx.exe works without dosbox (in windows XP at least)

So possible way how to patch civ.exe

0) ***BACKUP*** original civ.exe - copy civ.exe civorig.exe
1) run civedx.exe from windows
2) "s" load the .sve to first civedx.exe
3) run second civedx.exe in dosbox (so you know which is which)
4) "n" go to units directly (=edit values in civ.exe) in the second
5) manually retype the values
note: I have to press numlock twice for numpad to work in dosbox 0.74, not just in civedx.exe, dont know why
6) "F10", "u", "y", "q" to patch the new one in the second and quit
7) backup the new civ.exe - copy civ.exe civre.exe
8) start the game as usual

This is the "most comfortable" way I know now

Glitch/observation: Diplomat with defence 2 (perhaps nonzero defence in general) is unbeatable by a barb legion (30/10/1), when in a city on a hill. Outside a city everything works as it should, he's easily beatable. The barb legion(s) were "grown in a city" (don't know if that's a factor), i.e. barbs overtaken one of my cities and kept sending legion to other one. Around ten times in a row. So putting the diplomat's defence back to zero.

Edit: This was not a glitch (as I know now), it had to do with having just one city (I was playing as English on Earth with single city). Any unit is invincible to barbarians inside a single-city civilization; more details can be found in this detailed thread about combat mechanics; however, as follows from the thread, artillery will respect city walls in reCIV, since it has attack value different from 12 (which is a value hardcoded to civ as a test whether to ignore the city walls)

Another observation: the turns takes longer now. Nothing surprising, given the higher mobility of units. Playing on Earth, or rather "letting the AI play" and observing the outcomes. Guess that was a factor back in 1991 for generally rather low movement point distribution across units.

One more glitch, unrelated to battle system though: rushbuy of a battleship (that is a bit more expensive in reciv) on two occurences cost negative amount of money. Obviously an overflow.

Just want to share a way how to observe AI that I'm using now.

1) play on Earth as English
2) utilize shift+56 cheat/developers mode in 474.01 version
3) Uncheck "enemy moves" in options

Combined with civedx.exe, I'm quite curious what I'm about to see.

First try: "civmobile" - multiplied all MPs by 3 (just to see what happens). Attack/Defense left on default. Turn 16: Babylonians build one cavalry and already wiped three civs with undefended capitals.