DoveCDog's proposal (6-42)
Problem: Currently upgraded scouts move faster through forest than through plains. This is frustrating and immersion breaking.
Current:
Trailblazer 1
+10% CS
Double movement through forest and jungle tiles
Trailblazer 2
+10% CS
Double movement through desert and snow tiles
Proposal:
Trailblazer 1
+10% CS
Double movement through plains, grassland, and hill tiles
Trailblazer 2
+10% CS
Double movement through desert, tundra, and snow tiles
Rationale: The scout units have 2 sets of overlapping promotions - a) ignore movement cost and b) double movement through X tile. Because plain/grassland tiles are left out of the double movement promotions, the result is that scouts can move through 4 forest tiles vs 2 grassland tiles in 1 turn. With Scouting 3 this goes up to 6 forest vs 3 grassland tiles. By giving the same promotion to grassland tiles, the discrepancy will be gone.
An alternative would be to get rid of the double movement completely and have trailblazer give +1 MP. However, this would pose problems with crossing mountains and pillaging tiles costing less impact.
EDIT: As u/pineappledan pointed out, it is possible for a tile to be both plain and forest. Proposal has been edited to apply to only base tile types, not the features (ex forest, oasis, marsh) on top of them.
ma_ku's proposal (6-42a)
You can read pre-poll discussion about this proposal here
Proposal:
The current system works by balancing more sight against faster movement. It only does so after the first promotion, and neglects the fact that forests and jungles have hills, negating the XP reduction significantly by "catching up" all those tile reveals trivially. It also implies that you should always be revealing forests/jungles first if able, so that when you get to desert and snow you'll have picked up TB 2 and can cover twice the ground. If your initial area is heavily desert and plains, then by the time you pick up TB 2, that exploration phase is over, and you are finally able to make use of x2 in trees, while your second promotion does basically nothing.
Besides this point, there is also the matter of recon units owing much of their survivability to ignoring ZOC. Gating this behind one promotion line and denying it from the other should not be the case. There are certainly alternate ways to achieve this (you could add it to Survivalism 2, for instance, so that it's redundant on each path), but I chose the way that keeps an element of danger in the recon game until Classical. The current system removes danger as a concern for recon after the first or second promotion. There may be a case for moving the +1 Movement to Scouting 1, but I think the first step of equalizing the unit speed in early game terrains is worth the change in scouting meta.
This proposal retains the x2 movement for specialized terrains to keep the unit fun to play. By limiting the terrains to more expensive promotion levels (level 5+), each choice becomes more meaningful.
Note:
"Embarkation" without Fishing becomes a T4 promotion, instead of T3. This changes how accessible coastal islands will be to recon units, and puts more of a premium on the Fishing tech.
"Ignore ZOC" likewise shifts from being gated by XP to being gated by tech/upgrade ruins, coming online with Scouts at Sailing. Pathfinders should be expected to either use Survivalism to tank barbarians or Scouting to see and avoid them, since TBII will no longer be available to slip between them, and the movement disparity cannot be relied on as readily.
adan_eslavo's proposal (6-42b)
You can read pre-poll discussion about this proposal here
Proposal:
Rationale:
Tekamthi's proposal (6-42c)
You can read pre-poll discussion about this proposal here
Rationale
Gameplay-wise, this proposal does only the following, nothing else:
Proposed Implementation:
Problem: Currently upgraded scouts move faster through forest than through plains. This is frustrating and immersion breaking.
Current:
Trailblazer 1
+10% CS
Double movement through forest and jungle tiles
Trailblazer 2
+10% CS
Double movement through desert and snow tiles
Proposal:
Trailblazer 1
+10% CS
Double movement through plains, grassland, and hill tiles
Trailblazer 2
+10% CS
Double movement through desert, tundra, and snow tiles
Rationale: The scout units have 2 sets of overlapping promotions - a) ignore movement cost and b) double movement through X tile. Because plain/grassland tiles are left out of the double movement promotions, the result is that scouts can move through 4 forest tiles vs 2 grassland tiles in 1 turn. With Scouting 3 this goes up to 6 forest vs 3 grassland tiles. By giving the same promotion to grassland tiles, the discrepancy will be gone.
An alternative would be to get rid of the double movement completely and have trailblazer give +1 MP. However, this would pose problems with crossing mountains and pillaging tiles costing less impact.
EDIT: As u/pineappledan pointed out, it is possible for a tile to be both plain and forest. Proposal has been edited to apply to only base tile types, not the features (ex forest, oasis, marsh) on top of them.
ma_ku's proposal (6-42a)
You can read pre-poll discussion about this proposal here
Proposal:
- Keep "Ignore Terrain Costs"
- This is a keystone ability of recon, and what differentiates them from other unit lines.
- Scouting (along with Survivalism) becomes the second stem promotion line:
- Scouting 1 (no prereq): +1 Sight, +10% CS outside of friendly territory.
- Scouting 2 (req Scouting 1): +1 Movement.
- Scouting 3 (req Scouting 2): +1 Sight, +10% CS outside of friendly territory.
- Add Trailblazer 1-3 as leaf promotions, and renamed to highlight they are the same tier, not sequential:
Trailblazer 1Trailblazer (req Scouting 3 or Survivalism 3): Double movement in forests and jungles. +10% CS outside of friendly territory.Trailblazer 2Wayfarer (req Scouting 3 or Survivalism 3): Double movement in deserts and snow. +10% CS outside of friendly territory.Ignore ZOC.Trailblazer 3Voyager (req Scouting 3 or Survivalism 3): Allows embarkation. Allows crossing mountains. Able to use enemy roads. +10% CS outside of friendly territory.- Allows Survivalism scouts to also pivot into having a favored terrain, but not necessarily all of them.
- (Existing leaves:
- Medic I: prereq changed from Trailblazer II to Scouting II.
- Screening: prereq changed from Trailblazer II to Scouting II.
- Frogman: prereq changed from Trailblazer II to Scouting II.)
- Add "Ignore ZOC" to Scout and all descendants
- Locking this behind Trailblazer II added unnecessary disparity between the promotion lines for recon units.
- Being able to rely on this trait for balancing purposes is a net positive.
The current system works by balancing more sight against faster movement. It only does so after the first promotion, and neglects the fact that forests and jungles have hills, negating the XP reduction significantly by "catching up" all those tile reveals trivially. It also implies that you should always be revealing forests/jungles first if able, so that when you get to desert and snow you'll have picked up TB 2 and can cover twice the ground. If your initial area is heavily desert and plains, then by the time you pick up TB 2, that exploration phase is over, and you are finally able to make use of x2 in trees, while your second promotion does basically nothing.
Besides this point, there is also the matter of recon units owing much of their survivability to ignoring ZOC. Gating this behind one promotion line and denying it from the other should not be the case. There are certainly alternate ways to achieve this (you could add it to Survivalism 2, for instance, so that it's redundant on each path), but I chose the way that keeps an element of danger in the recon game until Classical. The current system removes danger as a concern for recon after the first or second promotion. There may be a case for moving the +1 Movement to Scouting 1, but I think the first step of equalizing the unit speed in early game terrains is worth the change in scouting meta.
This proposal retains the x2 movement for specialized terrains to keep the unit fun to play. By limiting the terrains to more expensive promotion levels (level 5+), each choice becomes more meaningful.
Note:
"Embarkation" without Fishing becomes a T4 promotion, instead of T3. This changes how accessible coastal islands will be to recon units, and puts more of a premium on the Fishing tech.
"Ignore ZOC" likewise shifts from being gated by XP to being gated by tech/upgrade ruins, coming online with Scouts at Sailing. Pathfinders should be expected to either use Survivalism to tank barbarians or Scouting to see and avoid them, since TBII will no longer be available to slip between them, and the movement disparity cannot be relied on as readily.
adan_eslavo's proposal (6-42b)
You can read pre-poll discussion about this proposal here
Proposal:
- Add new Canoe promotion for Scouting line (Pathfinder, Scout, etc.):
- allows unit to Embark everywhere; +1 Movement Point when Embarked; +10% Defensive CS when Embarked
- available after getting Trailblazer I or Survival I
- Embarkation ability is dropped from Trailblazer III; instead it will get additional +5% CS
- Move Frogman promotion from both current leaves to the new leaf and make it available after getting Canoe
- Frogman, as an end of line promotion will get additional bonus: +20% CS on Marshes
Rationale:
- first I would like to say I don't like any of the reworks suggested before. They are much too complicated and move the scouting line in a wrong way;
- scouting line is heavily dependent on top tree techs allowing embarkation on certain maps. If you play on Archipaelago or Tectonics with many islands, then you can quickly get stuck with your Pathifinder early on, just because you cannot pass water tiles and you don't want to get these techs because you are an inland civ for example (it's possible) or you want to focus on techs allowing you to improve Quarries which are in the bottom of the tech tree. It's sad you have to research top techs only for your Pathfinder or Scout. In my opinion scouting line should be self-sufficient;
- change is pretty simple and does not interfere with current promotions, so you can still choose the stem you want to follow, but in the meantime decide to allow your scout to embark, and later if you want, even improve this ability without waiting for Trailblazer III or Survialism III promotions; both promotions (old and new one fit together thematically;
- additional movement point and defense when embarked is a bonus that you get even when you have researched the tech allowing embarkation; additional defense can be useful when you are surrounded by barbarians in no man's land and want to evacuate;
- Frogman as an end of line promotion needs a buff, and because it's a niche promotion focusing on water movement, with a @Phosphoraptor's idea we decided to add additional strength on Marshes;
Tekamthi's proposal (6-42c)
You can read pre-poll discussion about this proposal here
Rationale
Gameplay-wise, this proposal does only the following, nothing else:
Primary Effects
- fixes the complaint that recon shouldn't be faster in forest than mounted are in open
- maintains good mobility for recon in rough terrain (eg. 1 MP per forest plot vs 0.5 in status quo vs 2 for all other units)
- maintains early mobility balance for pathfinder exploration
Secondary Effects
- eliminates choice required to obtain all-important ZoC bonus
- adds option to cross ice with recon 1-tech tier before explorer becomes available
- fills-in scouting promo branch with naval-equivalents to existing land-based bonuses
Proposed Implementation:
New Promotions:
Ignore ZoC
- replaces 'ignore terrain cost' on all recon
- ignores Zone of Control
- no other features (ignore terrain recently began adding a combat bonus? is this necessary?)
Pathfinding
- free to all pathfinder-equivalent units, not available to any others
- temporary, 20 turn duration
- double movement in all rough terrain (ie hills & forest/jungle), snow, desert, marsh
- can cross rivers without penalty (movement & attack)
Arctician
- requires Physics tech
- requires TB3 or SV3 promos
- can cross ice
- +15% combat strength in snow
Adjusted Promotions:
Trailblazer 1
- add double move in Marsh
Trailblazer 2
- remove 'Ignore ZoC'
- add double heal in oasis
Trailblazer 3
- add double move in hills
Scouting 1
- add +1 embark vision
- add +5% embark defense
Scouting 2
- add +1 embark vision
- add +10% embark defense
Scouting 3
- add +1 naval move
- add +15% embark defense
Embarked Vision Bugfix:
I reported this on github a while ago, here. It will need to be fixed for this proposal to work correctly (embark vision specifically; but there's no downside to fixing it):
- In brief, all units that embark currently have '0' embark vision, but the dll/engine doesn't allow 0 to display as 0 in game, so every units gets 1 embark vision effect regardless of their actual assigned integer value. In other words, a unit w/ a defined value of 1 embark vision behaves just as unit w/ 0 value embark vision. So, given that everything has 0 vision, and 0 = 1 vision-effect-wise, to give extra embark vision effect in-game, the bonus promo has to give +2 integer value embark vision -- and if you stack two of these suddenly you're getting extra embark vision that was not intended.
- Solution: change all the embarkation-granting promos to give 1 embark vision (they currently give 0), and all promos granting extra/bonus embark vision, to also give 1 embark vision (they currently give 2) -- the embark bonus vision promos will stack correctly this way. I think i've caught them all in the attachment but may have overlooked some cases.
Last edited by a moderator:
