[Vote] (6-01) Capture Unit Update Proposals

Approval Vote (select all options you'd be okay with)


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Stalker0

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Voting Notes: This is not an either/or type of vote. You may select any combination of the options presented for inclusion.


(6-01) Captured Units (from France UA or Dutch Sea Beggars) Gain "Purchased XP" from Nearest City

CurrentProposedRationale
Captured Units always start at 0 XP.Captured Units start with purchased XP based on the nearest city. The nearest city is determined as the capturer's closest owned city OR the capturer's Capital as a default if it cannot find the nearest city.Users have cited that it does not feel good to have 0 XP captured units. Purchased XP is 50% of the XP a unit would have if they were trained with special exceptions like Freedom's Draft Registration boosting this to 100%, or Free Companies and Mercenaries having special rules to gain full XP.
XP Table
You have no XP buildingsYou have barracksYou have barracks + armoryYou have barracks + armory + military academy
Purchased XP0 XP+7 (not enough for a promotion, but one combat can level them)+17 (enough for 1 promotion)30 XP (enough for 2 promotions)
Produced XP0 XP+15 (enough for 1 promotion)+35 (enough for 2 promotions)+60 (enough for 3 promotions)

(6-01a) Remove Random Factor from Unit Capture​

Current unit capture mechanic:
If a melee attack kills an enemy of the same domain, and the attacker can capture units, and the defending plot only has one enemy unit that can defend (only possible to have more than one with a naval + land unit stack):
If defender cannot be captured (there's a promotion column for that), chance is 0.
Otherwise, chance = (10 + (attacker base CS / defender base CS) * 40)%, capped at 80% when attacker is 1.75x stronger.

Problems:
It's random where your melee attacker will end up in after dealing a killing blow. The human player always needs to account for both cases.
Sometimes it's better to NOT capture a unit and you want to advance the attacker (for Overrun or Blitz units), but this mechanic doesn't let you choose.
The AI doesn't know about unit capture at all, and will need to re-evaluate their tactical plan every time it happens since the attacker is not at the expected position.
You can prevent your naval units from being captured by putting a land unit on the same tile (Embark, Polder), and vice versa (ship in a Canal/Polder). It's a consistent way of blocking unit captures.

Proposed unit capture mechanic:
If a melee attack kills an enemy of the same domain, and the attacker can capture units:
Loop through all 6 tiles around the defender, count how many of them are enterable by the defender.
The function used is CvUnit::canEnterTerrain with MOVEFLAG_NO_EMBARK and MOVEFLAG_DESTINATION. Water is always considered unenterable for land defender in this case.
Notably this blocks CS units from entering barbarian encampments, but it's uncommon that this would affect the capture result.
Also disregards whose territory these tiles belong to, and if the tiles already have units.
Count how many enemies are surrounding the defender.
The function used is CvPlot::GetNumEnemyUnitsAdjacent, which is also used in flanking. Exclude embarked units.
Surround% = Number of surrounding enemies / Number of enterable adjacent tiles
If there's 1 military unit on the defending tile, the unit is captured if Surround% >= 50%.
If there are more than 1 military unit on the defending tile, the defending unit is captured if Surround% >= 50%. Other units on the tile are forced to retreat, or instantly killed if retreat isn't possible.
Rationale: if the other units can't retreat, they're very surrounded (or frail in the case of embarked) and would likely die anyway.
Other changes:
The combat simulation UI is updated to show whether the defender will be captured when killed.
If possible, teach the AI about this.
AI already utilizes flanking + ZoC and likes to surround enemies, thus can easily trigger unit capture.
Not relying on the RNG means AI can pre-simulate unit captures, which has the additional benefit of reducing the need of re-evaluations.

Examples:
Defender is a land unit surrounded by 6 non-mountain land tiles. The attacker needs to surround it with 3+ units to capture it.
Defender is a non-Incan land unit surrounded by 2 mountain tiles and 4 normal land tiles. The attacker needs to surround it with 2+ units to capture it.
Defender is a Galley on a thin strip of coast tile. A Spearman (of the same player) is embarked underneath the Galley. Any melee killing blow would be able to capture the Galley. The Spearman would retreat to the other water tile if possible, or killed otherwise.
 
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More doable than it is currently.
 
More doable than it is currently.
Currently the AI doesn't have to do anything special in order to capture a unit. With 6-01a, they will have to. So, without AI implementation, this change will be worse for the AI.

I'll reiterate what I said for your last proposal for capture:
If you're not going to do the AI work for it, don't assume that it will be done at all.

A nebulous "oh, I'm sure sometime will code the AI to be able to use this mechanic sometime in the future" is not a good reason to make this change, when in the interim, the AI will perform comparatively worse .
Note that this proposal does not have anyone explicitly ready to work on the AI to support it.

If I understand correctly:
Surround% = Number of surrounding enemies / Number of enterable adjacent tiles

If there is 1 enemy unit with 5 open tiles, and 1 unit with the capture promotion, the likelihood of capturing the unit is 0% ? (1 surrounding enemy / 5 open tiles)
 
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Yet ilteroi voted for it. He's the only one who knows that stuff, and AI can be worked on outside the congress.
 
That's really what this one comes down to for me. It's a great, thematically-oriented concept. Checks all the boxes for what I look for "on paper"; but if it becomes a feature that human can master way beyond anything the AI can match, this is no fun... an ilteroi vote in favor is a positive sign, just wish there was more clarity on this point
 
If there is 1 enemy unit with 5 open tiles, and 1 unit with the capture promotion, the likelihood of capturing the unit is 0% ? (1 surrounding enemy / 5 open tiles)
Yes. The likelihood can only be 0% or 100%.
 
Using my vote to counter-vote captured unit XP. I feel more strongly that should NOT be added than I do about the capture mechanics being changed.
 
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