[MOD] Guns, Wyrms and Steel

[Valkrionn]

I'm aware. I was just poking at you.

 

[Opera]

I'm aware. I was just grunting back.

 

[Milaga]

I updated the first post with two more modules, the Guns and Steel. For a full list of changes, look at the changelog in the first post.

GWS Guns

This module tries to solve a problem I did not like. In the endgame are way too many guns than I like in my Fantasy game. Not just the arquebusiers either, most of the mid to end game naval units have cannons! So the arquebus is a national unit, ships lose their cannons and some other stuff is thrown in there as well.

Naval Units are in for some other, big changes down the road in this module. Hopefully. I haven't quite got it working yet.

Balance feedback requested, although you don't need to tell me that this is a nerf to the Mechanos. I already know.

GWS Steel

One thing that has bothered me is the progression of weapons in FfH. Bronze weapons are actually superior to iron weapons. Their increase in use, historically, was purely an economic reason. It was much easier to find and smelt iron than it was to find and smelt copper and tin, since these two metals usually do not appear close to each other. I could have easily just pretended that iron is steel, but I felt there was opportunity for some new strategies.

I assume that before the Age of Ice most of the high quality weapons, armor and tools were made of steel. The technology of extracting iron from the ground, smelting the ore and combining it with the right amount of carbon was fairly widespread. Techniques would vary wildly, as would the quality, but the core tech was common.

All of that was lost in the Age of Ice. Even if the information about how to do this was retained the infrastructure for producing Steel to service an empire was shattered and would have to be rebuilt.

Units without weapon promotions are using improvised weapons or weapons from a previous age that are in disrepair. As a civilization reaches appropriate tech the knowledge to refashion weapons is recovered such that new weapons can be created to better outfit existing units.

This is how I see the steel tree progressing:

Crafting - Ability to reliably craft tools, such as mining picks, ore carts, and so on.
Mining - Ability to mine ore from the ground. Copper and Iron are revealed.
Bronze Working - Smelting is rediscovered, as is the technology for making alloys.
Smelting - The smelting and mining infrastructure is further refined such that ore is much easier to extract and utilize. Civs with access to iron will find that they are able to equip their soldiers with weapons that, while not as good as bronze, can be mass produced. Bronze blades must be forged in fire, but iron blades can be ground with stone.
Steel Working - Further advances in smelting finally allow for high quality steel alloys. While steel was probably made well before this, it was barely better than raw iron.
Weaponsmithing - Weapon and armor production has become an industry and soldiers in the civilization are easily equipped. The metallurgy technology is very advanced and miners are able to spot exotic ores. Mithril is revealed.
Mithril Working - The technology to work with this magical and temperamental metal is discovered.

There are still some issues with TXT keys with GWS Steel. It can be a bit confusing because sometimes it will say Iron Weapons when it means Steel Weapons. I'll have to release a separate archive that has replacements for a few of the files in the RiFE assets directory.

 

[Valkrionn]

Honestly, it's been planned for some time to add Steel weapons in place of Mithril, with mithril being very rare, and powerful. We decided to wait until 1.5 for that though.

 

[Calavente]

some quick thoughts:

nice ideas :
but I think the "mass product" effect of iron weapons is not really here in your modmodmod.

if you already have some blacksmith... why would you get iron weapons ?
(especially as you can build bronze weapons earlier).
the iron weapons would go to new units built in cities without blacksmith... IMO, as you tried to get bronze weapons, you have a blacksmith in all cities worth something ; especially in those that will build melee units.

I have some random ideas :
-allow some units to get iron weapons but not bronze weapons : warriors, ?horsmen? scout?(but not hunter nor horsearcher...Etc) to show that to the contrary of bronze weapons, iron can be mass producted.

-bronze weapons are not "automatically given" : make them an equipement, for melee/chariot/knight/longbow/nightwatch...etc) that you can buy, for 5?, if you have a blacksmith ; removed if steel weapons or mithril weapons are applied ; removes iron weapons ; iron weapons cannot be applied if there are bronze weapons.
it is not much, but it is more expensive than the later iron weapons that comes for free.
then, later, at smelting, allow, with forge/weaponsmith , bronze weapon automatically given without having to buy it : (new promotion; replace "iron weapons" well, same promotion as actual) : with forges, bronze weapons are easier to get
other idea : with smelting, if you have a "master smith", you can buy an equipement : steel weapons : 85 : same effect as the "steel weapons" promotion (replace bronze/iron weapons/remove high quiality bronze, remove plate, allow high quality steel, removed if mithril weapons), but available earlier... for a huge price : the knowledge of good steel was a secret, guarded by the master smiths... at steel working, the knowledge is spread around, steel weapons are free for the units working for your empire.
issue : will the AI learn to buy them ?

 

[Milaga]

Honestly, it's been planned for some time to add Steel weapons in place of Mithril, with mithril being very rare, and powerful. We decided to wait until 1.5 for that though.

Yeah, I remember we were talking about it many, many months ago.

I've not found much on mithril in the lore, which is a good thing. I really don't want mithril to be revealed and workable in the same fashion as the lesser metals. I have some ideas for events to make discovering mithril more exciting (and, perhaps, dangerous.)

but I think the "mass product" effect of iron weapons is not really here in your modmodmod.

It is represented by the fact that it is the only weapon promotion that does not require a building. The blacksmith building doesn't provide any benefit apart from allowing craftsman specialist (which is a change that will hopefully help to pop great engineers.) So if you want to easily get your bronze weapon promotions you'll to spend the hammers to build up an infrastructure of blacksmiths. And steel weapons require a forge, which is 250 hammers to build. Not something most civs will have in every city.

So I think it's represented nicely.

if you already have some blacksmith... why would you get iron weapons ? (especially as you can build bronze weapons earlier).
the iron weapons would go to new units built in cities without blacksmith... IMO, as you tried to get bronze weapons, you have a blacksmith in all cities worth something ; especially in those that will build melee units.

I'm not sure I fully understand what you are saying.

If you don't have access to copper, you won't be getting bronze weapons. With smelting you'll be able to make use of the iron you might have sooner.

To have a city upgrade units you need to invest the time in a blacksmith. And that is just for bronze weapons. For steel weapons, you are going to need to build a forge, and those hammers spent on the blacksmith will be wasted.

-allow some units to get iron weapons but not bronze weapons : warriors, ?horsmen? scout?(but not hunter nor horsearcher...Etc) to show that to the contrary of bronze weapons, iron can be mass producted.

Earlier versions of GWS Steel I was playing with included giving some weapon promotions to most units. In the end I decided giving weapon promotions to units not designed for it causes serious balance issues. It's not something that can be done without completely redoing most units with this bonus in mind. This is one thing that I've worked on but I decided to table until I see what changes the RiFE team makes further down the road.

-bronze weapons are not "automatically given" : make them an equipement, for melee/chariot/knight/longbow/nightwatch...etc) that you can buy, for 5?, if you have a blacksmith ; removed if steel weapons or mithril weapons are applied ; removes iron weapons ; iron weapons cannot be applied if there are bronze weapons.

It's funny that you mention this too. For a while I was playing with iron the only weapon that was auto-acquired. Bronze, steel and mithril weapons all needed to be purchased for an increasing price. It became incredibly tedious. In the end I gave it up because I felt there had to be a better way that didn't cause so much repetitive stress and micromanaging. Still, I haven't entirely ruled out purchasing mithril weapons, though they probably will not end up being purchased with gold.

other idea : with smelting, if you have a "master smith", you can buy an equipement : steel weapons : 85 : same effect as the "steel weapons" promotion (replace bronze/iron weapons/remove high quiality bronze, remove plate, allow high quality steel, removed if mithril weapons), but available earlier... for a huge price : the knowledge of good steel was a secret, guarded by the master smiths... at steel working, the knowledge is spread around, steel weapons are free for the units working for your empire.

This is an interesting idea, but I am not sure I want to add shortcuts like this. Many of the Steel changes increased the strategic value of both copper and iron. I think ways for civ to circumvent the importance of owning these resources defeats the purpose of the mod.

Not only that, but the more games I play, the more I think the master smith system might be overused. If you want steel promotions, you better be prepared to conquer some land with iron. I don't like the idea of buying military superiority (for all civs, anyway.)

 

[Calavente]

Well, I think I was misunderstood :
for buying some bronze /steel weapons before having the tech : IMO, of course one should have the ressource!!! (don't know if possible) but I wouldn't have thought of allowing to circumvent the importance of owning copper/iron ! I just wanted to allow some units to get the weapons 1 tech before you can mass product them. maybe 85 is not enough... make it 100 (needs iron+mastersmith)

As for iron being cheap not being represented :
I'll have to play-test it but I think that I'll never have the use of iron weapons in your mod.
Well, the only use would be when I cannot get any copper.
I'll always have blacksmiths in any melee-producing cities. Always ! and especially in my capital.
Iron weapons arrive with smelting (tech after bronze working) : so if I have some copper I have to build blacksmiths : not building them and waiting for the next tech to have "no building needed iron weapons" is bad strategy !

And if I build units in cities without blacksmith, I can always take the time to go to the capital : thus irons weapons would be a placeholder until going into the nearby city hub that has a blacksmith.
That's why I proposed it.

So IMO :
make iron weapons available at least to warriors (you removed bronze weapons from them) bronze get 20% vs iron !
I would still propose you give iron weapons to scouts : the tech appears way late ; scouts with +1 would still be worse than hunter. IMO it would not be a huge balance issue.
those 2 proposals would make iron feel like the weapon of the unlucky and of the pauper.

My option of having bronze weapon only buyable (if blacksmith+copper) was an other way of showing that iron weapons are cheaper. But I forgot of the micro aspect

 

[odalrick]

You could give bronze weapons a minimum level requirement. A "You can only afford to equip the elite." type of deal.

 

[Randomness]

IMO, the scarcity of Bronze weapons compared to Iron weapons would best be represented by adding Tin as a resource and require both copper and tin to have Bronze weapons. This was the reason for the scarcity of Bronze in our world, why not in Erebus?

 

[Oranos]

Is it possible to have multiple resources required for a promotion?

 

[Oranos]

I was looking over your change log, and I don't see this nerfing the Mechanos too much. Most of these changes I would have made myself if I knew what I was doing. The only thing I'm not a huge fan of is the black powder promotion. That's what corned powder replaced. The components of black powder tended to separate during transit, so it wouldn't always fire. Corned powder solved that by creating cakes of powder, instead of leaving it as loose particles. Disclaimer: I'm no expert so I could be wrong about the details of corned/black powder.

 

[Milaga]

I just wanted to allow some units to get the weapons 1 tech before you can mass product them. maybe 85 is not enough... make it 100 (needs iron+mastersmith)

There aren't a lot of techs to begin with. Getting things 1 tech earlier can be a huge advantage, especially in the late game. I'll think about it.

I'll have to play-test it but I think that I'll never have the use of iron weapons in your mod.
Well, the only use would be when I cannot get any copper.

In my games, I rarely have access to both copper and iron unless I do a lot of early/mid game conquering or the other civs let me expand a lot.

A change that I wasn't able to put in yet was that there should be twice as much iron resources as copper. This should mean that most civs will have access to steel if they go along the steel tech line. This will also mean that mithril will become all the more important.

Iron weapons arrive with smelting (tech after bronze working) : so if I have some copper I have to build blacksmiths : not building them and waiting for the next tech to have "no building needed iron weapons" is bad strategy !

Of course, especially because iron weapons are worse than bronze weapons. Yes, iron weapons come later in the tech tree but they are in fact worse than bronze. Copper is still the most important metal in the early game.

make iron weapons available at least to warriors (you removed bronze weapons from them) bronze get 20% vs iron !
I would still propose you give iron weapons to scouts : the tech appears way late ; scouts with +1 would still be worse than hunter. IMO it would not be a huge balance issue.
those 2 proposals would make iron feel like the weapon of the unlucky and of the pauper.

I never really liked the bronze warrior rush, which is why I removed it. An iron warrior rush isn't as bad since you can't get the units until smelting but it still has the problem of being able to produce lots of cheap and strong units.

Having units that normally can't get weapon promotions get iron weapons was one of methods I thought might represent the ease of creating weapons of iron. I had planned on using it in some civ-specific mechanics but the changes to some of the civs in 1.30 means I need to do a little more testing before I make any decisions there. I won't think about adding them for all civs until after RiFE redoes units completely.

You could give bronze weapons a minimum level requirement. A "You can only afford to equip the elite." type of deal.

Possible, but that might diminish the power of copper a lot. Even if set to something low like level 2, you still would need Apprenticeship, a command post, Form of the Titan or something to get 2 xp before new units could even use bronze weapons.

IMO, the scarcity of Bronze weapons compared to Iron weapons would best be represented by adding Tin as a resource and require both copper and tin to have Bronze weapons. This was the reason for the scarcity of Bronze in our world, why not in Erebus?

This is the most logical answer, and was the first idea I had about steel. Copper is plentiful, so really the resource Tin should represent Bronze weapons. The plan was basically:
* Iron +1 requires iron, Bronze Working
* Bronze +2 requires copper, tin, Smelting
* Steel +4 requires iron, coal, Steel Working

I gave up on it before I even started coding. I had a feeling that finding both copper and tin would be too hard and there would be many games that no civ would have them. That's the same reason I gave up on coal for steel. Coal was to represent the carbon in the steel, but really it was because coal allowed for much hotter and more efficient smelters than wood fired ones. I liked that idea too, but seemed too complex.

Is it possible to have multiple resources required for a promotion?

It sure is.

I was looking over your change log, and I don't see this nerfing the Mechanos too much.

Well, the Mechanos' can no longer spam their powerful endgame unit, the Musketman. They only can have 4 of them, leaving the handgunners as the rank and file troops. Since they can have howitzers destroying everything before any combat is fought anyway, I'm not too worried about their survival.

Most of these changes I would have made myself if I knew what I was doing. The only thing I'm not a huge fan of is the black powder promotion. That's what corned powder replaced. The components of black powder tended to separate during transit, so it wouldn't always fire. Corned powder solved that by creating cakes of powder, instead of leaving it as loose particles. Disclaimer: I'm no expert so I could be wrong about the details of corned/black powder.

That sounds about right.

Black powder was a primitive form of gunpowder that produced a lot more smoke than later mixtures (Cordite and it's predecessor that slips my mind.) All Khazad and Mechanos gunpowder units get an invisible promotion, Cordite, which prevents the acquisition of black powder, so their guns are more reliable. It's invisible since it has no other effects.

Corned powder is an extra bonus given ALL leaders with the Ingenuity trait. You can have corned black powder or corned cordite.

I'm still not happy with the black powder promotion. It will probably be changed.

 

[Valkrionn]

Yeah, I remember we were talking about it many, many months ago.

I've not found much on mithril in the lore, which is a good thing. I really don't want mithril to be revealed and workable in the same fashion as the lesser metals. I have some ideas for events to make discovering mithril more exciting (and, perhaps, dangerous.)


Earlier versions of GWS Steel I was playing with included giving some weapon promotions to most units. In the end I decided giving weapon promotions to units not designed for it causes serious balance issues. It's not something that can be done without completely redoing most units with this bonus in mind. This is one thing that I've worked on but I decided to table until I see what changes the RiFE team makes further down the road.

Not only that, but the more games I play, the more I think the master smith system might be overused. If you want steel promotions, you better be prepared to conquer some land with iron. I don't like the idea of buying military superiority (for all civs, anyway.)

Yep, it's still in the works too. I'm not sure how to handle Mithril, other than not having it start on the map.... Should be special somehow.

As for Master buildings... I frankly agree, and they'll be merged into Guilds when they are redone, rather than allowing you to access all of them with enough GP.

This is the most logical answer, and was the first idea I had about steel. Copper is plentiful, so really the resource Tin should represent Bronze weapons. The plan was basically:
* Iron +1 requires iron, Bronze Working
* Bronze +2 requires copper, tin, Smelting
* Steel +4 requires iron, coal, Steel Working

I gave up on it before I even started coding. I had a feeling that finding both copper and tin would be too hard and there would be many games that no civ would have them. That's the same reason I gave up on coal for steel. Coal was to represent the carbon in the steel, but really it was because coal allowed for much hotter and more efficient smelters than wood fired ones. I liked that idea too, but seemed too complex.

What you listed for Steel is pretty close to what I plan.

 

[Calavente]

As for Master buildings... I frankly agree, and they'll be merged into Guilds when they are redone, rather than allowing you to access all of them with enough GP.

its your mod... but know that getting enough Caster Craftsmen, then sacrifiying them into 5 master buildings is hard to do and I dont see why having all of them with enough GC should be OP/gamebreaking...etc.
With enough GP you can have enough altar level, giving lots of xp to disciples, lots of to priests, lots of :happy:
I think sacrifying 5 GC (that you can't use to rush-build a Word wonder !!) for the 5 master buildings gives less boni than sacrifying 5 GP (that otherwise has no use save for 1 for holy shrine) into altar lvl 5.
I don't think it is "unbalanced" or something. Transfering them to guilds could be interesting but IMO not for the reason you state here.

Those buildings propose few, costly options that are not even very strong, just fine, they have a heavy cost (a GC), and few advantages : +15-15% is good, +3 gold is not a lot.

Just my (unasked) opinion

 

[Valkrionn]

its your mod... but know that getting enough Caster Craftsmen, then sacrifiying them into 5 master buildings is hard to do and I dont see why having all of them with enough GC should be OP/gamebreaking...etc.
With enough GP you can have enough altar level, giving lots of xp to disciples, lots of to priests, lots of :happy:
I think sacrifying 5 GC (that you can't use to rush-build a Word wonder !!) for the 5 master buildings gives less boni than sacrifying 5 GP (that otherwise has no use save for 1 for holy shrine) into altar lvl 5.
I don't think it is "unbalanced" or something. Transfering them to guilds could be interesting but IMO not for the reason you state here.

Those buildings propose few, costly options that are not even very strong, just fine, they have a heavy cost (a GC), and few advantages : +15-15% is good, +3 gold is not a lot.

Just my (unasked) opinion

There are simply too many purchasable promotions granted by those buildings. It is far too easy to outfit a handful of units, turning them into unstoppable forces.

By combining them with guilds, we change one extremely uninteresting mechanic (current guilds) and trim an interesting mechanic to a more manageable level; In the end, each guild will have several UBs, UUs, and Equipment promotions.

 

[Milaga]

What you listed for Steel is pretty close to what I plan.

The problem I had with this plan is that I didn't feel I had enough control over distribution of resources. Since 1.3 only has two mapscripts (from one codebase) this might not be as big a hurdle is in 1.2 when most of these modules were conceived.

 

[Opera]

You know, making it so some bonus prereq are everytime accessible to every player seems just useless to me. Having the players fight over the resources they want sounds good however.

 

[Sjru]

There are simply too many purchasable promotions granted by those buildings. It is far too easy to outfit a handful of units, turning them into unstoppable forces.

By combining them with guilds, we change one extremely uninteresting mechanic (current guilds) and trim an interesting mechanic to a more manageable level; In the end, each guild will have several UBs, UUs, and Equipment promotions.

Guilds are going to be like on Wild Mana's?

 

[shoggi]

You mean that they are basically separate factions, you have to please so they work for you?
No, they will not be like that.
No Noble Houses for RifE, though I personally like that part of Wildmana.

 

[Valkrionn]

The problem I had with this plan is that I didn't feel I had enough control over distribution of resources. Since 1.3 only has two mapscripts (from one codebase) this might not be as big a hurdle is in 1.2 when most of these modules were conceived.

Yeah, I hate adding resources too.

It's something we can puzzle out given enough time, though.

Guilds are going to be like on Wild Mana's?

No. A thousand times no.

You mean that they are basically separate factions, you have to please so they work for you?
No, they will not be like that.
No Noble Houses for RifE, though I personally like that part of Wildmana.

I frankly do not.


As for how they'll work (said it before, but can't hurt to reiterate):

• Addition of GuildClasses. Similarly to Civic Categories, you may only have one guild for each class 'active' at any one time.
  • This is absolutely necessary for the benefits they will give! If they compete on an individual city basis, you can have one in one city and the other next door, gaining benefits of both for your empire. That is not what I want, so they compete on an empire-wide basis.
  • Look at it as a government-sponsored guild, rather than a wholly separate entity.
• Guilds grant access to multiple unique Buildings, Units, and Equipment promotions.
• Rather than granting direct economic benefits for access to resources, their buildings will gain benefits with them (meaning you must invest hammers to gain them!), and their units will have affinities for them.
  • This will require an entirely new affinity system, allowing us to grant varied effects.