[Vote] (7-22) Allow Non-Recon Units to Pick Up Ancient Ruins

[L. Vern]

In the fifth session, a proposal was passed to rebalance ancient ruins and overall smooth their power, which was great. However, lumped in with those changes was the change that only recon units can pick them up, which was less great. This proposal aims to (mostly) revert that aspect only

Proposal: Ancient ruins can now again be picked up by non recon units. "Found Crude Map" and "Upgrade Unit" ruin bonuses can only be chosen by recon units.
Rationale:
1) Gameplay
I've had several patches now to try out these changes, over which I've played quite a few games and given this change an honest try, and I just don't think it adds very much depth or interesting decision making. Rather than creating optionality and providing opportunities for trade-offs, this change instead simply removed early game pathing options. The only tangible justification I've seen was that this prevents city states from taking ruins, but that's problem that can be solved more directly in a separate proposal if required.
2) Player Expectations
This change is confusing, goes against player expectations, and thus provides a poor user experience. Many people trying the mod or updating from a relatively old version are confused, or think (incorrectly, though justifiably) that the mod is buggy and unstable.

MAGI: Complex Proposal, database and DLL changes required for unit rewards that can only be chosen by recon units

 

[Recursive]

City-States being able to take ruins (at least with units) sounds like a bug to me.

 

[Tekamthi]

I find the recent change to recon only to be rather neutral -- I agree it didn't do much to make things all that much more interesting, but it's not worse either. I recognize that I was well aware of the change so it wasn't a surprise to me as it would be a new player, but it strikes me as something all will figure out. Partial solution here would be to have a notification fire off when non-recon moves into ruins

It's slightly more intuitive to have any unit be able to interact with them, but otherwise I don't see a strong advantage to reverting the ancient ruins.

It adds some subtle value to building a second pathfinder very early, and though still not usually an optimal play, there are scenarios where such is viable, and the current state increases this viability

 

[Stalker0]

I like it/hate it. So +s, other -s, I'm good either way.

 

[Tekamthi]

Slightly off topic here, but civ 5 engine has (maybe had, not sure if this was ever gutted) a "treasure AI" built to handle the treasure units in the new world scenario. iirc the point of these was to move them back to capital, and could be captured til then.

Assuming treasure AI hasn't been removed, ancient ruins might be more fun if they generated this style of "treasure" unit, and the reward only came on successful extraction back to capital or other city. In this kind of implementation, maybe the treasure unit gains all the promos of whatever unit unlocks it from the ruins, so recon with better movement is naturally at an advantage here

 

[rkkn]

While it's nice that it gives more reason to have another pathfinder, it's also very annoying: If my starting warrior does any scouting I get to watch helplessly as the ruins it reveals get taken by other pathfinders. And plus any area it reveals is less xp for my pathfinder. Sometimes scouting with the warrior feels like it actually makes me worse off, when my pathfinder has to move through the already revealed area when it hasn't gotten enough xp for the mobility promotions. Feels terrible. So sometimes I just press F and have the warrior do nothing.

 

[Stalker0]

While it's nice that it gives more reason to have another pathfinder, it's also very annoying: If my starting warrior does any scouting I get to watch helplessly as the ruins it reveals get taken by other pathfinders. And plus any area it reveals is less xp for my pathfinder. Sometimes scouting with the warrior feels like it actually makes me worse off, when my pathfinder has to move through the already revealed area when it hasn't gotten enough xp for the mobility promotions. Feels terrible. So sometimes I just press F and have the warrior do nothing.

while its true there is a loss of Xp, I think that moore than made up by my warrior finding a ruin so my pathfinder can beeline to it, rather than spend several turns hunting.

Again I see pluses and minuses. I do think it makes the pathfinder more interesting and useful early, but I agree its a bit clunky at times and not always intuitive to people.

 

[Tekamthi]

Sometimes scouting with the warrior feels like it actually makes me worse off, when my pathfinder has to move through the already revealed area when it hasn't gotten enough xp for the mobility promotions. Feels terrible. So sometimes I just press F and have the warrior do nothing.

Pretty sure database structure exists that we can give a starting unit only a specific promotion. Perhaps we give the turn 0 warriors their own version of recon xp -- could be given a turn timer so warrior ends up just like normal warriors eventually

 

[azum4roll]

This change is confusing, goes against player expectations, and thus provides a poor user experience. Many people trying the mod or updating from a relatively old version are confused, or think (incorrectly, though justifiably) that the mod is buggy and unstable.

I'd expect new players to read the Pathfinder's new promotion text (Gain XP when revealing tiles. Can claim Ancient Ruins.), and figure that out themselves.
Can't complain if you don't read the game's instructions.
Though it could be added as a tip too.

Using Warriors to scout already has a cost of XP loss. The intention of this change was to discourage any non-recon explorations.

 

[Circe]

You can camp your warrior on any ruins it reveals to restrict the AI's ability to path over them. Doesn't work 100% of the time and is pretty gamey, but hey.

 

[rkkn]

also results in this sort of thing happening

 

[Tekamthi]

Could the ruins require recon to be seen at all? ie ruins somehow invisible until pathfinder is in range to see them... ppl won't complain about missing ruins with their warriors if they can't even see them

 

[rkkn]

I actually think that would be good. it would make more sense as to why your warrior can't use it

 

[azum4roll]

Humans can still sort of guess where they are if they see CS units avoiding a certain tile. Very gamey.

(And if CS units are not made to avoid ruins, there's a solid chance the ruins are unclaimable.)

 

[Stalker0]

You can camp your warrior on any ruins it reveals to restrict the AI's ability to path over them. Doesn't work 100% of the time and is pretty gamey, but hey.

so far I haen't found this to be the case. I have several times plopped a warrior right on top of the ruin, didn't slow down the pathfinder from grabbing it in the slightest.

 

[Circe]

so far I haen't found this to be the case. I have several times plopped a warrior right on top of the ruin, didn't slow down the pathfinder from grabbing it in the slightest.

If it's flat land and they have the movement to reach a tile beyond your warrior, they'll still grab it. I think it's when it's on a hill that they can't see beyond(to target an unoccupied tile), or when they would end their turn on the occupied tile, that they'll skip it.

 

[Tekamthi]

I have several times plopped a warrior right on top of the ruin, didn't slow down the pathfinder from grabbing it in the slightest

I think this is more a problem with our too-fast recon units. If recon was truly a 2 move unit, upgradable to 3, rather than effectively a 4 move upgradable to 6, you could war dec the rival player to keep pathfinder away, as it approaches. Won't even see another enemy unit before this war ends most of the time

If it's flat land and they have the movement to reach a tile beyond your warrior, they'll still grab it.

Our ignore terrain cost recon can do this in both flat and rough generally... It's all 1 move at most -- but you're correct about the vision

 

[pineappledan]

I plan to not vote on this.

I don't hate the change, but I'm not sure if it's worth subverting expectations for newcomers.

 

[Hawawaa]

My 2 cents- either A only recon line can get goodie huts or B recon line and only ancient era military units can grab goodie huts cause it does seem silly that you wouldn't want to grab huts by your capital.

 

[Tekamthi]

My 2 cents- either A only recon units get goodie huts or B scout line and only ancient era military units can grab goodie huts.

should consider also C only recon and starting warrior can grab goodie huts