OK. Good to see we have room to grow.
Seriously, the mod was designed so it can easily add new units. It was kind of the entire point of the way I designed it, actually...
Chariot: ok - I can manage to either add a new chariot unit or "fix" the stats in the regular in-game unit (IOW - do we leave the ranged Chariot Archer unit in and add this Chariot, or do we change the Chariot Archer to where it's melee only?). I'm assuming we'd leave the Egyptian War Chariot UU alone?
- The Shock promotion deals with
defenders on flat (open) ground. But that's probably ok.
- There is also a "Heavy Charge" promotion the Polish Winged Hussars get - it forces a defender to retreat if the attacker inflicts more damage than it receives. A defender who cannot retreat takes extra damage.
- There is a "rough terrain ends movement" promotion that can be added.
- Upgrade to Knight makes the most sense to me - for the same reasons you suggested
- I'd probably recommend adding a couple of offensive promotions (Shock 1/2, Heavy Charge, Blitz/2 attacks? Charge: 25% bonus vs. damaged units) and some others (City attack - 50%, rough terrain ends movement) - my goal would be to make this a glass cannon. His Combat Strength (attack points) would be something like 5, but with promotions, he'd actually attack with somewhere near 10 - but still defend with 5. Seems about right to me.
So - do we change the basic Chariot Archer unit to a melee unit or do we add a new melee one? If a melee one, is it a Merc unit or normal? FWIW, Combat Strength for Chariot Archer is 6/10 (combat/ranged combat), Horseman is 12 CS melee).
Horseman: I'd love to "fix" the Horseman unit, as I really don't think it's very useful - for many of the same reasons the Chariot is a waste of production.
- I'd recommend adding the "25% bonus vs. damaged units", although I'd prefer to make it either +33% or +50%. The Heavy Charge promotion would be even better, but it's diluting the special nature of the Winged Hussar unit, and people who love the Polish Civ might be annoyed - unless we perhaps change it's CS from 28 to 32...? Just a thought... Kind of the same fix we did for civs that normally had Elephant units - buffed them up to make up for adding similar units...
- Horseman upgrade to Knight makes perfect sense
- If I understand your concept - the more movement points a Horseman uses, the stronger the attack (i.e. he gets a good run at the target) - have to factor in roads!
It's straightforward to implement in LUA, but... we'd be adding a function call and test for every unit that ever enters combat - just to see if it were a Horseman. That's a lot of overhead for what is probably only a few dozen attacks in the entire game. I'd prefer to go with Shock 1 and Charge promotions awarded when built and call it "good enough..."
My next plans for the Exotic Units mod is to:
1. Redo the entire Artwork library - mostly renaming objects so when this mod is played with other mods, there won't be any texture/model conflicts that some players are complaining about. Not hard at all, but does take time.
2. Reworking the Fireship unit - have got a much cooler version (better animations mostly)
3. Make a few more fixes on the code (a few typos, etc.)
- And of course, add these two units/unit adjustments, once we get them further pinned down.
I'm working on #1 as we speak. Hope to have it done tomorrow. Numbers 2 & 3 will take about 30 minutes.