RAND 1.76 Balancing and Suggestions

[generalstaff]

This brings me to my next suggestion:

In the future era it would be nice to have a building similar to the aforementioned ballista improvement, like a tesla coil (think red alert!), that can be built in cities and zaps adjacent units for 10% every turn. Upon discovery of perhaps another tech it could be upgraded to have a range of 2 tiles instead of 1.

Or alternatively occupied forts in the future (or even modern) era could have that option added to them, upon discovery of a specific tech, such that enemies suffer 10% damage when passing by next to said occupied forts.

Just brainstorming ideas here

My Towers module added several buildings like that: Cannon Tower, Artillery Battery, Missile Battery, Rail Gun Battery, Laser Battery, and Anti-Matter Battery. The names suggest the tech level. It also had several earlier "towers" which improved the Defense % and Reduced Bombard damage. It was part of my building pack which I did not update since 1.74.

 

[os79]

I object to the fact that Axemen require obsidian and the Spearmen don't.
I appreciate Spearmen requiring copper or iron, but they should require obsidian for the same reason Axemen require Obsidian. Historically, spearmen used obsidian in some areas of the world too.
Plus, it is jarring gameplay-wise too.

 

[Afforess]

I object to the fact that Axemen require obsidian and the Spearmen don't.
I appreciate Spearmen requiring copper or iron, but they should require obsidian for the same reason Axemen require Obsidian. Historically, spearmen used obsidian in some areas of the world too.
Plus, it is jarring gameplay-wise too.

Good point - an oversight on my part. I will correct it.

 

[os79]

Cool.

One more thing (I know I'm no Steve Jobs but I like that phrasing ):
Purely brainstorming. Personally doubt anything will come of it but who knows.
Is it possible to couple a resource with an unit's chance to win a combat? For example, for spearmen that require either three resources. Obsidian grant no additional chance to win over its usual stats, copper grant maybe .5 percent or 1 percent better survival odds, and iron grant it 3-5% additional survival odds. Do the same for all units that require OR resources list, ordering resources in that list from weakest to strongest.
Purely brainstorming... No pressure if you aren't interested in that coding .

 

[Afforess]

Cool.

One more thing (I know I'm no Steve Jobs but I like that phrasing ):
Purely brainstorming. Personally doubt anything will come of it but who knows.
Is it possible to couple a resource with an unit's chance to win a combat? For example, for spearmen that require either three resources. Obsidian grant no additional chance to win over its usual stats, copper grant maybe .5 percent or 1 percent better survival odds, and iron grant it 3-5% additional survival odds. Do the same for all units that require OR resources list, ordering resources in that list from weakest to strongest.
Purely brainstorming... No pressure if you aren't interested in that coding .

Basically an armor/weapon system that depends on resources? Brainstorm some more use-cases for it(would be easy to add via promotions or some other mechanic). I think it's a cool idea.

 

[Cykur]

I object to the fact that Axemen require obsidian and the Spearmen don't.
I appreciate Spearmen requiring copper or iron, but they should require obsidian for the same reason Axemen require Obsidian. Historically, spearmen used obsidian in some areas of the world too.
Plus, it is jarring gameplay-wise too.

Glad someone else agrees, I was also suggesting this several posts back. I've had several games where Obsidian saved my butt.

 

[Requia]

Possibly some armor promotions? Light armor (requires iron or cattle) and heavy armor (requires iron) (as an additional prereq, you cannot have the other). They both provide a bonus against melee and archers, the heavy gives a slight penalty against horse, but a bigger bonus against the other two.

 

[os79]

Armor is good.
But I was thinking that iron spears break less often than obsidian-tipped spears.

Promotions may not work great because they come with earned experiences, and this idea I have don't visualize this.

Hard to explain my ideas within Civ4 BtS coding framework here.
The resources that is connected to a civilization have to somehow automatically augment survival odds of their wielding units.

From weakest to strongest for ancient until Renaissance: obsidian--->copper--->iron
From weakest to strongest for gunpowder units: sulfur--->ammunition
For sea going units with coal and oil, they are already slower than uranium burning units, correct? I don't recall... So these don't apply here.

Basically, this is a hard concept to mesh into Civ4 gameplay that is fair to everyone.

 

[Afforess]

Armor is good.
But I was thinking that iron spears break less often than obsidian-tipped spears.

Promotions may not work great because they come with earned experiences, and this idea I have don't visualize this.

Hard to explain my ideas within Civ4 BtS coding framework here.
The resources that is connected to a civilization have to somehow automatically augment survival odds of their wielding units.

From weakest to strongest for ancient until Renaissance: obsidian--->copper--->iron
From weakest to strongest for gunpowder units: sulfur--->ammunition
For sea going units with coal and oil, they are already slower than uranium burning units, correct? I don't recall... So these don't apply here.

Basically, this is a hard concept to mesh into Civ4 gameplay that is fair to everyone.

Os79, I was thinking of *abusing*, not using, the promotion mechanics. These promotions could not be earned by XP, but certain conditions.

One thought is that the promotions are very resource dependent, which gives larger empires an advantage. Something that counterbalanced it somewhat would also be nice.

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

Armor is good.
But I was thinking that iron spears break less often than obsidian-tipped spears.

Promotions may not work great because they come with earned experiences, and this idea I have don't visualize this.

Hard to explain my ideas within Civ4 BtS coding framework here.
The resources that is connected to a civilization have to somehow automatically augment survival odds of their wielding units.

From weakest to strongest for ancient until Renaissance: obsidian--->copper--->iron
From weakest to strongest for gunpowder units: sulfur--->ammunition
For sea going units with coal and oil, they are already slower than uranium burning units, correct? I don't recall... So these don't apply here.

Basically, this is a hard concept to mesh into Civ4 gameplay that is fair to everyone.

Except when an obsidian spear tip breaks you are left with an obsidian spear tip. Same goes for flint. Whereas the copper/iron tip needs to be sharpened or recast. This was one of the reasons it took so long to move from stone tools to metal ones. The ability to produce many metal ones quickly and cheaply was the turning point.

I think it was the Total Realism or TAM mod which did something like this. If I remember rightly they used a promotion style mechanism. When ever a unit moved into or near a city that could make the new type of weapon the unit had its promotion changed to the newer one.

It is a good way to do things rather than having to have a bunch of units that need upgrading.

 

[Arkatakor]

My Towers module added several buildings like that: Cannon Tower, Artillery Battery, Missile Battery, Rail Gun Battery, Laser Battery, and Anti-Matter Battery. The names suggest the tech level. It also had several earlier "towers" which improved the Defense % and Reduced Bombard damage. It was part of my building pack which I did not update since 1.74.

Yes, this is exactly what I had in mind - would be nice to have this integrated with AND...

Regarding all this talk about spearmen, I hope they will require Bronze Working so as to give a chance for early chariots to thrive.

In the mindset of trying to make chivalry available earlier (to avoid gunpowder / matchlock beelning), I have taken a another look at the horse tech tree and thought it might be an idea to remove the Mounted Archery tech (assuming its a prerequisite of Stirrup). At that point the mounted archer unit (available with Mounted Archery) could already be made available with horse breeding.

Another thing, stable should be upgradeable to knights stable. That way, assuming one has all the mounted techs and no stable / knight stable built in the city, one can directly build a knights stable which would automatically gain the benefits of having the "normal" stable building as well. As it is, its quite cumbersome to have to build a stable, then go back into the city and look for the knights stable and manually build that as well.

I also support DrewBledsoe's idea of reducing defensive bonus of forests to 25% (down from 50%).

 

[youmakemefart]

Regarding all this talk about spearmen, I hope they will require Bronze Working so as to give a chance for early chariots to thrive.

it might be an idea to remove the Mounted Archery tech (assuming its a prerequisite of Stirrup). At that point the mounted archer unit (available with Mounted Archery) could already be made available with horse breeding.

I also support DrewBledsoe's idea of reducing defensive bonus of forests to 25% (down from 50%).

I agree with all the above

 

[DrewBledsoe]

I also support DrewBledsoe's idea of reducing defensive bonus of forests to 25% (down from 50%).

I agree with all the above

Quick shameless bump for my idea


IRL I'm in the process of moving house this coming weekend (stress lvl 10/10 ), so haven't had much time for these boards recently. I lose net connection sometime tomorrow, hopefully back by monday, if not sooner.........

 

[Babri]

I was thinking about copper, iron & obsidian. One way to make them different would be to give them different armour promotions as mentioned by other users. Iron could make a series of armoury buildings unlocked which can give units a strength boost & mzybe some small disadvantages, not sure about obsidian. What I know is that it is very sharp.
The other thing that can be done is to make these resources less interchangable. Example Early Bombards would require copper (bronze)

 

[os79]

Two things:
You can add the code to have units hold on to the bonuses for additional 2 or 3 turns (game speed depending) to simulate weapons being still available until they are rusted away or broken by hard usage. I mean this for the situation where the resource is no longer available to your civilization (Depleted? Snatched by your enemies? Whatever.)

2. BTW, I thought that RNG balance this idea somewhat well? Because these modifiers I speak of here is only a small boost as compared to other boosts available in the game...?

 

[Afforess]

Quick shameless bump for my idea


IRL I'm in the process of moving house this coming weekend (stress lvl 10/10 ), so haven't had much time for these boards recently. I lose net connection sometime tomorrow, hopefully back by monday, if not sooner.........

Uh, it's already a feature, as of beta 3.

 

[Requia]

I can gift lead to the AI to avoid the health costs it gives and still get the production boost

And screw up the AI come to think.

 

[Afforess]

I can gift lead to the AI to avoid the health costs it gives and still get the production boost

And screw up the AI come to think.

? What does being in the lead have to do with health, or production?

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

? What does being in the lead have to do with health, or production?

The resource "lead" ie soft metal used in water proofing roofs and such like.

 

[Requia]

? What does being in the lead have to do with health, or production?

Lead generates +2 unhealth, so putting a mine on it when its next to a river is dicey early game (eventually lead is useful). But I gave the lead to the AI (for free), so I got the high production mine but no unhealth.