K-Mod: Far Beyond the Sword

[Charles555nc]

Alot of kids and adults, at least here in America, use three words alot in gaming.

1. Rape - when used in gaming, means to totally dominate or destroy, hints at an unfair advantage. Example: "Babylonian bowman raped my warrior stack, I didnt stand a chance".

2. Pwn - A change in the word "own". Means that you beat somebody so bad that you in fact, owned the guy or were in complete control of him. It went from "I totally owned that guy in civ4" to "I totally pwned that guy in civ4" for added exaggeration.

3. Epic - Massively overused, basically means exciting or unexpected. "That fight between the tank and the warrior was epic, after 30 seconds of fighting the warrior won!".

But yeah, if Karadoc is offended or confused by the (mis)use of one of these words, lets just skip saying them and get back to the exciting topic of MGs!

Anyone think that maybe the intercept rate of mgs needs to go up or down? How do people feel about MGs related to airforces?

 

[lunfa_reo]

Alot of kids and adults, at least here in America, use three words alot in gaming.

1. Rape - when used in gaming, means to totally dominate or destroy, hints at an unfair advantage. Example: "Babylonian bowman raped my warrior stack, I didnt stand a chance".

2. Pwn - A change in the word "own". Means that you beat somebody so bad that you in fact, owned the guy or were in complete control of him. It went from "I totally owned that guy in civ4" to "I totally pwned that guy in civ4" for added exaggeration.

3. Epic - Massively overused, basically means exciting or unexpected. "That fight between the tank and the warrior was epic, after 30 seconds of fighting the warrior won!".

4. Noob



Also I thought "pwned" was derived from "pawn-owned", in the sense the person that beat you was of a lower game level or skill (i.e. a "pawn").

But back to MGs topic:

One option to get around these promotion rules would be to create a whole new combat type, called 'defense guns' or something like that. If machine-guns were the sole member of their own combat type, then it would be easy to enable and disable whatever promotions we like, without affecting any other units. That would work, but I think it's an inelegant solution, and I'd rather not do that.

In a couple of mods they get assigned a new unit class "Trench Units". In some mods MGs are the only unit in this category, while in other mods more units have been added to it.
In any case the new class comes together with a corresponding anti-trench promotion for other units, a promotion called "Infiltration".

I think this solution allows to work on units balance in a flexible way.

 

[plastiqe]

Do you really want to argue about this stuff?

The answer appears to be yes. : /

The availability of promotions is primarily determined by the unit's 'combat type'. (Combat types include siege, melee, gunpowder, etc.) But also, unit's are not allowed to choose promotions which give a bonus that the unit cannot use. For example, machine-guns can't choose City Raider, because machine-guns cannot attack; and Explorer's can't choose Woodman III because they also can't attack and that promotion provides and attack bonus. However, since Formation affects both offence and defence, enabling it for siege units would enough it for machine-guns and catapults both.

I always find it interesting learning about the inner workings of the game. How then does the Guerrilla line of promotions work for Gaelic Warriors and not other melee class units? Could something like that be used for MG vs other siege class units?

If you really think they need a buff then since MG has a natural chance at intercepting, presumably the Interception line of promotions could be added to MG without giving it to all other siege.

Seriously, str 18... a C2 cavalry matches that and has 30% withdraw on top. Str 18 +50% = 27, against a C2 infantry which has str 24, not much difference. Once the MG is knocked down to str 12, he's now just defending at 18 and an infantry kills him. I don't know how you guys claim the MG is good or even close to what it was in real life.

So as long as you're comparing a Machine Gun that is in the open on flatland with no promotions, you can get decent odds if you use a C2 Cavalry. Or you can beat it if you knock it down to 12 by researching Physics for a couple Airships (which avoid interception) and then Constitution + Economics + Corporation + Assembly Line to get Infantry. You seem to want Machine Guns to be all powerful while I'm saying in a real game situation they're already a valuable addition to your stack. MG can be very good in the right situation. You don't need them to counter mounted because you've got Riflemen for that.

Although to be fair, the MG was the dominant weapon till the tank.. As cavalry generals who thought otherwise usually learnt by counting what was left of his force after a failed attempt to charge at MGs. The only counter to the machine gun was overwhelming numbers, or eventually the tank..

One on one (without all those fantasy conditions) Machine Guns do have winning odds against every unit until you get into Artillery and Industrialism. And as siege units that can't attack, it's representative of WWI and trench warfare. Game balance wise I personally like MG where they're at so I don't think other propositions like making them Str 27 Gunpowder units or creating a new unit category for them is warranted.

How do people feel about grenadiers, in terms of usefulness, length of use, and fun (other than getting promoted into very strong mgs, which is their major use for me).

I think the whole tech of Military Science is weak and that's really the Industrial age unit conversation we should be having. It's a dead end that doesn't really get you much compared even to say Communism or Fascism. Ship of the Line is expensive and slow; even when they're available I'd rather build Frigates. Grenadier is a poor counter to Riflemen. As a 1 move unit they would theoretically be used in a slow moving stack with cannons, but then as you march up to a city they lose defending against Riflemen (the unit they're supposed to counter) as well as to renaissance mounted. Looking at that era of the game I would mark Grenadiers, Ship of the Line & Ironclads as all more deserving of a buff than Machine Guns.

 

[Charles555nc]

I think the whole tech of Military Science is weak and that's really the Industrial age unit conversation we should be having. It's a dead end that doesn't really get you much compared even to say Communism or Fascism. Ship of the Line is expensive and slow; even when they're available I'd rather build Frigates. Grenadier is a poor counter to Riflemen. As a 1 move unit they would theoretically be used in a slow moving stack with cannons, but then as you march up to a city they lose defending against Riflemen (the unit they're supposed to counter) as well as to renaissance mounted. Looking at that era of the game I would mark Grenadiers, Ship of the Line & Ironclads as all more deserving of a buff than Machine Guns.

Completely agree.

 

[noto2]

Plastique - I wouldn't say rifles counter cavalry. Rifles are perhaps, at best, an even match for cavalry. If a rifleman attacks a cavalry unit it will have slightly better than 50% odds, but cavalry has 2 moves and usually an additional promotion, and 30% base withdraw.

Maybe I'm weird, but I always go AL before railroad, MG's are just 100% irrelevant to me. Perhaps I play differently than most people. To me, MG's are about as important in the game as ships of the line and grens.

Actually, I agree that the military science tech and units need a buff as well. I find that assembly line comes rather quickly (yes I just said I bee-line it usually). Perhaps AL should be a more expensive tech and MS should be much cheaper, and perhaps railroad should be cheaper while combustion should be more expensive. That way, there would be more time spent with frigates, ships of the line, rifles, MG's, etc, and the jump to the industrial age with factories and destroyers would be a bigger jump.

 

[noto2]

Guys I'm sorry, sometimes I spend a week playing Dota and it's hard to make the transition from that communication environment

 

[plastiqe]

Actually, I agree that the military science tech and units need a buff as well. I find that assembly line comes rather quickly (yes I just said I bee-line it usually). Perhaps AL should be a more expensive tech and MS should be much cheaper, and perhaps railroad should be cheaper while combustion should be more expensive. That way, there would be more time spent with frigates, ships of the line, rifles, MG's, etc, and the jump to the industrial age with factories and destroyers would be a bigger jump.

9 times out of 10 I have Railroad well before Assembly Line so I guess we're opposites. Usually by that point in the game my workers have run out of things to do so the production bonus and a cross continental Railroad is a big help. Sometimes I'll even avoid Infantry to preserve a good drafting setup and/or avoid obsoleting the GL.

Combustion followed by Flight are then usually higher priorities for me especially when I'm dealing with another continent - or more realistically trying to stop an invasion force. I haven't played deep into K-Mod 1.41 so I'm interested to see if the Adjusted the tech value of air units change will have the AI actually researching Flight now. In previous games it sometimes seemed like the AI would go out of it's way to avoid Flight while it was getting pummeled by bombing runs launched from my carriers.

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Going back to the earlier discussions on the power of Slavery and Bronze Working, I'm convinced that moving Lumber Mills much earlier would benefit the game. Human players know the power of chopping forests but the AI will often leave forests in their territory. If Lumber Mills were available earlier A) it wouldn't be such a clear cut easy decision to chop everything and B) the AI would have an improvement for otherwise unused forest tiles.

I think the best way to go about it would be to switch around Lumber Mills and Workshops. You could split the next-to-rivers commerce bonus and still have that kick in at Replaceable Parts. 1 3 plains forest or 2 2 grass forest is hardly gamebreaking but they'd be decent tiles in a production city, and better than nothing for the AI's forests.

 

[TheOnlyDJCat]

As a side note - the human player(s) are not the only relevant factor to value a unit. The MG is very valuable for AIs to prevent cannon/infantry stacks to rule everything.

 

[Alrik2002]

I'm pretty sure the only changes I've made relevant to that features are in CvCity::popOrder (in CvCity.cpp). I did a brief search through the git logs, and found these:
The bulk of the change is here (back when my log entries were a bit more sloppy).
Here and here are a couple of later adjustments.

Thank you! It works very well!

I now only have one thing left I would like to add and I´ve some problems with it. I would like to add a new mission for pillaging routes seperately. The units should be able to pillage routes even if there are improvements on the same plot without pillaging the improvements first. In the mod I made basing on Better BAT AI it worked well but in K-Mod the button for Pillage Route is missing. I´ve tried several changes without success so far. It would be very nice if you could help me. Perhaps I have to add some additional things since you´ve changed some of the original code in some of the source files I edited (f.e. merging the code from CvSelectionGroup::canStartMission to the new function CvSelectionGroup::canDoMission).

I´ve made a new topic for this and it would be very nice if you could take a look.

Thank you very much!

 

[Charles555nc]

Are there any techs/civics/units/buildings.ideas that Karadoc wants us to discuss or test?

 

[plastiqe]

Are there any techs/civics/units/buildings.ideas that Karadoc wants us to discuss or test?

He sometimes posts threads in the general discussion section asking for opinions on changes he is considering, though he hasn't in a while. After reading his Representation vs Universal Suffrage (balance of government civics) topic I had an idea. I don't want to necro a thread from 2011 so I'll put it here.

• Monarchy doesn't really have a place. It's only useful at the start of the game because it's the only option you have. Once representation becomes available, monarchy is obsolete. Compare this to the Labour branch. If you got access to all the labour civics at the start of the game, slavery would still be the best. Similarly with the Legal branch – bureaucracy is the best in the early game, but not in the late game. Monarchy is never the best, because representation is too powerful.

Under Monarchy, cities with Castles get 2 per military unit stationed in the city.

Castles can be a good build in the right situation - like with Stone in an espionage economy - but they aren't nearly as important in the game as they were in history. It makes sense in that your citizens would be happier because the King is protecting them with a Castle. The AI loves to build em too and speaking of Protective this would be a nice buff for the weakest trait. I could see adding a maximum of 5 units for Monarchy happiness to prevent the human player from abusing it.

 

[noto2]

One thing I miss is the choice between monarchy and republic in Civ 3. In Civ 4 there is no real choice until very late in the game.

 

[strijder20]

Perhaps the obvious answer is that machine-guns should be gunpowder type. They certainly seem like they should be gunpowder units. But that would be a pretty major balance change. If they were gunpowder units, not only would they have access to the coveted City Garrison promotion, they would also get the free promotions from the Protective and Aggressive traits, and they'd suffer the penalties of +attack vs. gunpowder promotions and bonuses from their enemies and stuff like that. Maybe that's all fine, but it would probably mean some additional balance tweaks would be required.

If you do that, don't forget that Artillery's +50% against siege is not only meant to counter cannons, but also MGs which have immunity from collateral.

 

[Charles555nc]

The anticipation of a next patch/any changes is killing me. Hope you are doing ok Karadoc.

 

[karadoc]

I'm a bit frustrated that a heap of work I did recently on the AI is undermined by bad caching design. After writing heaps of new stuff, I realised that if I reference any part of the current game state in a particular part of the AI then it could potentially cause OOS due to this cache problem. -- It's frustrating not just because it means that work will probably go to waste, but also because it's another reminder that I need to really concentrate on how syncing works whenever I change pretty much anything in the code. It's a damn mine-field.

If any of you ever write a multiplayer game, please try to isolate the game mechanics and AI from the UI, so that these kinds of problems don't come up.

 

[TheOnlyDJCat]

Then at least I can assure you, if you ever write a better AI for my Magic: The Gathering client (and there is much to do ). I cleared this mine field some years ago!

 

[Charles555nc]

Two things. I finally built Ankor Wat and it didnt add any hammers to the great priests I added to my cities (priest specialists worked fine ofc). "priests provide one more hammer in all cities".

2nd thing, when I start on a solo continent, my capital area is good but the expansion area is usually horrible or visa versa. Is there any way a solo start could get a ~5% more quality area? Just a tiny bit. I know its a delicate balance.

 

[Lone Wolf]

I am pretty sure that MGs aren't Gunpowder deliberately, so that they would not be damaged by collateral and so that bonuses vs Gunpowder wouldn't work on them. If anything, they probably need their own unit class that possesses all these attributes...

 

[Windsor]

Two things. I finally built Ankor Wat and it didnt add any hammers to the great priests I added to my cities (priest specialists worked fine ofc). "priests provide one more hammer in all cities".

There's no such things as Great Priests.

You have priest specialists and then you have Great Prophets. Ankor Wat only boosts the preist specialists, not great prophets. This is true for both BTS and kmod.

The mechanics here isn't consistent with the rest of the great people and a lot of players have been confused about what the Ankor Wat does. It would however become and insanely powerful wonder if it did boost prophets.

 

[Charles555nc]

I have to wonder why and how you would think that giving great prophets +1 hammer would be game breaking.

Even in a one city challenge type scenario, with alot of wonders and the philosophical trait, you would reliablely get maybe 3 or 4 great prophets (and you would need one to use for a great religious wonder). 3 or 4 extra hammers a turn would be hardly noticeable for all that effort.

If you compare it to the spinal minaret or the university of sankore or even the Sistine Chapel- other wonders in its age group, I personally think that Ankor Wat under performs.


Edit: If you dont like that idea. How about giving Ankor Wat a free priest specialist and lowering the "allowed priests" to 2 from 3.