Realism Invictus

[teks]

hmm, I don't know. I'm having a hard enough time with medium horses. I'm not too worried about how mounted units work. I think the biggest problems between mounted units and citiy attacks lies with their immunity to first strikes, collateral damage, and withdrawal chance, however, I also feel that all of these abilities are vital to the unit's role as a counter to large stacks of doom.
Since the AI is still ******ed, even with K-mod, making mounted units useless against cities would create more problems then it would solve. Horse-heavy AI would end up building huge worthless armies, and the whole game would be dominated by foot units. As for human players, we are smart enough to build more effective units to attack cities like the man-at-arms, who generally come with a +25% city attack bonus at 8 strength.
So, we could come up with some really cool ideas for mounted units, but can the AI handle it?

My ideal knight would be limited to around 3-4 units, and 3-4 units of dismounted knights. They would all have an additional gold maintnence cost, and they would cost much more to build. In exchange, the mounted unit would have a large grassland/plains strength arranged in such a way that pikemen become the only unit that is even a threat to the knight at all, but they would only be a hard counter by cost effectiveness. Longbows will keep their attack bonus against mounted, but similiarly, they are only better off because they are cost effective. The only real coutner to a knight until gunpowder would be another knight, which would work real slick because knights attack other mounted units first in combat. Furthermore knights would have a larger withdrawl chance. To counter their grasslands bonus, walls and forts would have their bonuses vs mounted doubled.
The foot version would gain the knights immunity to first strikes as well since they are equally armored foot variants, and they would also have a small withdrawal chance to help preserve the value of their increased cost.
I doubt its possible, but It'd be cool if the knight's heal speed could be halved as well. Such top quality soldiers, horses, and equipment are not so easily recovered.
Many nations, perhaps even most, wouldn't have access to knights at all. Most of these civilizations have access to cheaper armored units who can still function as an anti-knight, but lack the knights awesome power. Some civilizations still have great mounted units, like the mamlukes, and kataphractoi, but these still function differently then a real knight and really shouldn't even require feudalism.

 

[thegreekweegee]

Do you have a screenie to show the possible bug?

I can provide one:



This must be some kind of bug, because normally, this shouldn't happen. First noticed it in World Map, when playing as Tokugawa.

 

[SR-71]

And people think I'm the only one being self-righteous.
There is no need to repeat "how disappointing" is a mod just because of one feature.

I can't see where I said the mod is dissapointing... And if I feel dissapointed, I'll say it under any circunstance, because IMHO I consider the cause it's important. Can be only one feature, but it remains a great timeline and can affect the whole game. I could be wrong perhaps, but it is not empty criticism, I really would want to improve the mod, so I suggest ideas that IMHO could make the mod better. You can disagree of course.

And calling to me "self-righteous" could be consider as a bit offensive, because I'm explaining my point of view adding suggestions. Don't know you enough to consider you so, but you should not apply such adjectives to others...
==

Giving you want to pursue the idea against mounted units:

The changes must be done there:

Realism Invictus/Assets/XML/Units/TR_Mounted_CIV4UnitInfos.xml
Realism Invictus/Assets/XML/Units/TR_Mounted_Light_CIV4UnitInfos.xml

I'm pretty sure you have to modify those variables:

<iCollateralDamage>[COLOR="Silver"]Some Number[/COLOR]</iCollateralDamage>
<iCollateralDamageLimit>[COLOR="Silver"]Some Number[/COLOR]</iCollateralDamageLimit>
<iCollateralDamageMaxUnits>[COLOR="Silver"]Some Number[/COLOR]</iCollateralDamageMaxUnits>

Regarding Castles and Walls...

Realism Invictus/Assets/XML/Buildings/CIV4BuildingInfos.xml

You have to modify numbers...

<UnitCombatDefenses>
				<UnitCombatDefense>
					<UnitCombatType>UNITCOMBAT_MOUNTED</UnitCombatType>
					<iDefenseBonus>15</iDefenseBonus>
				</UnitCombatDefense>
				<UnitCombatDefense>
					<UnitCombatType>UNITCOMBAT_MOUNTED_LIGHT</UnitCombatType>
					<iDefenseBonus>15</iDefenseBonus>
				</UnitCombatDefense>
			</UnitCombatDefenses>

==



I concur.

Thanks a lot for your explanation. I'll try them for sure

P.S. About stadistics, I attached the savegame to allow you to investigate the real circumstances.

 

[SR-71]

I agree with your point of not making the cavalry useless, but I'm not complaining about that. I complain exactly about this:

- Cavalry is able to do the same damage on cities than bombard-capable units so it is an advantage not realistic and out of the timeline.

From what you are explaining, can I deduce that it's impossible to deny collateral damage on cities and allowing it on field battles? So if you delete the collateral damage on cities, do you delete this feature on field too? If it is so, I can understand your point. But if it can be done, don't see the problem with it

And about increasing walls defense, I really think that it is necessary. But I'll try it to see how the game develops. Oh and another question. Do these changes affect to savegames?

Regards

 

[markantony]

Lovely to see

Spoiler :

The SAS and the Spitfire in as unique units.

Have wanted to see them in the game for ages. Might I suggest the

Spoiler :

T-45 Daring class to replace the crusier and the Queen Elizabeth Class to replace the Nuclear carrier?

Great mod, well done.

 

[flitz]

Quick question, since I found no answer by an extensive forum search nor the ingame help:
is it possible to build the camp/logging camp as stand-alone tile improvement on a forest tile without any resources ?
Nvm

 

[SR-71]

Hi! I'm very proud and happy to tell you that after modifying the defense of Walls and Castles against mounted units (I've doubled walls percentage and increased a bit Castles ones) I've observed that results are better and a bit more accurate. I must try them in the long run, but at first the results are very interesting.

This is very useful to counter the enormous cavalry stacks, at least against player cities. And makes assault much more realistic, because cavalry is still effective but only in enormous numbers, and the assaults are decided by the infantry (and AI uses it too, so it has good chances to achieve success without unfair issues) so the game is much better balanced IMHO. BUT as you say, other probolem is the immunity to first strikes. So against light mounted, perhaps the defense must be even more increased. i'll try

Anyway, I think those changes are effective, and despite you are not going to take them, I'll implement on all my games until there's another better idea

Thanks for your help.

Regards

P.S. I've realised that changes don't affect savegames

 

[civcivcivcivciv]

isn't there scroll bar ? in world editor diplomation ?

when i play almost 50 civs i couldn't see them all.

i wanted to edit little war and peace

 

[xondrax]

I can provide one:

This must be some kind of bug, because normally, this shouldn't happen. First noticed it in World Map, when playing as Tokugawa.

Thanks. I hope they fix it soon.

 

[Manco Capac]

P.S. I've realised that changes don't affect savegames

It doesn't as long as you don't check "Locked Modified Assets", which option isn't used over here. XML changes are the easiest. Python are correct and even take effect within a ongoing game (vs XML changes that need to reinitialize) and DLL-oriented changes are the longest and most complicated.

 

[Hian the Frog]

Hi All,

I was off for the last days.

I read that a player met a problem with the walls building. This one should not give +1 unhappy face. That's a bit strange. It may be an event but I don't remember there's one of this kind.

What is sure is that the Walls should give +1 happy face with Despotism and Monarchy (IIRC).

Is there more players that meet this problem ?

 

[Hian the Frog]

Hi All,

We know about the problem of large cavalry stacks attacking and conquering cities.

We are still working on it. Belive me it's not easy to find a balanced and realistic solution.

Among the problems:
- how making this units powerful on field but weak in cities (att/def) ?
- how forbid the built on only-cavalry armies ? IRL, only a very civs were using such armies.
- how limiting the number of cav units in your army ? Cav units should represent only a part of the army (up to 40% in Renaissance, up to 20% in Industrial, up to 10% in Modern era - these values are examples) ?


Right now we building the 3.2.1 patch.
Later, we will focus on this point (among others).

 

[Manco Capac]

Hi All,

We know about the problem of large cavalry stacks attacking and conquering cities.

We are still working on it. Belive me it's not easy to find a balanced and realistic solution.

Among the problems:
- how making this units powerful on field but weak in cities (att/def) ?
- how forbid the built on only-cavalry armies ? IRL, only a very civs were using such armies.
- how limiting the number of cav units in your army ? Cav units should represent only a part of the army (up to 40% in Renaissance, up to 20% in Industrial, up to 10% in Modern era - these values are examples) ?


Right now we building the 3.2.1 patch.
Later, we will focus on this point (among others).

If the mongols were able to create their sieges on the spot with captive engineers, why not considering the same for all mounted units.

Catapults and machines

Technology was one of the important facets of Mongolian warfare. For instance, siege machines were an important part of Genghis Khan's warfare, especially in attacking fortified cities. The siege engines were not disassembled and carried by horses to be rebuilt at the site of the battle like European armies. Instead the Mongol horde would travel with skilled engineers who would build siege engines from materials on site.

The engineers building the machines were recruited among captives, mostly from China and Persia. When Mongols slaughtered whole populations, they often spared the engineers, swiftly assimilating them into the Mongol armies.

The problem, from the AI point of view, city combat is everything. Although able to attack on the fields when being attacked, when attacking, the AI targets cities. Weakening the mounted units would only make the AI weaker when invading.

 

[cfeyyaz]

...

- how limiting the number of cav units in your army ? Cav units should represent only a part of the army (up to 40% in Renaissance, up to 20% in Industrial, up to 10% in Modern era - these values are examples) ?


Right now we building the 3.2.1 patch.
Later, we will focus on this point (among others).

I have the feeling that the developers are confusing Civilization with Age of Empires II. In AOE, the Paladin (a kind of heavy cavalry, for those who don't know) is the strongest unit. An encounter of 100 Paladins and and 100 champions (the most powerful swordsman in the game) would result in a win of the paladins. Similarly in Realism Invictus, the Swordsman is awarded a strenght of 6 and the classical-age cavalry with 7. But actually, in normal wars, a company (or group or division whatever) of foot soldiers is larger than a cavalry company. so I think, in Civilization games, a swordsman unit represents -let's say- 1000 men, but a cavalry unit represents -let's say- 500 mounted soldiers. But I think, the designers of Realism Invictus simply assumes, that every unit has the same amount of fighting men in it. That means: one mounted soldier should be stronger than a foot soldier = Classical-age cavalry -> 7 str, Swordsman 6 str. And the AI then produces simply the strongest unit, very similar to the fact that many Age of Empires players would mostly produce Paladins.

The solution might be to simply decrease the strength of cavalry and horse archer, to represent the fact that they are less in numbers. Also strong counter units would discourage the AI from producing many mounted units. I would propose this scheme for the ancient and classical age (which is not too different from the current scheme):

Unit.............Strength...Bonus

Archer................3......+100% vs Light Mounted, +50% vs. Recon; %50 City Defense
Militia.................3......+50% vs Mounted (pretty useless )
Shortswordsman...4......none
Spearman...........4.......+100% vs Mounted, relative cheap
Huntsman...........4.......+50 Attack vs Melee; good withdrawal chances
Axeman..............5.......none(or something creative like city attack bonus etc.)
Swordsman.........6.......none(or something creative)
Chariot...............4.......%50 Attack vs Melee, Recon; moderate witdrawal chances; collateral damage; appears early; but expensive
Horse Archer.......5.......%50 vs Melee; good withdrawal chances
Cataphract.........6.......moderate withdrawal chances, collateral damage

Of course, all units should have slight bonus/malus according to their civilization for more flavour. Also the mounted units should have city penalty as it is. As you can see, mixture of archer, spearman and swordsman is sufficient and and quite solid, but if you seek some decisive advantage, you should invest in horsemen for their collateral damage. I'd also propose, that the Ranged Aid should provide a very significant bonus (up to 50%) against the light mounted units in order to break the rock-paper-scissor circle a bit. Otherwise, two armies with about equal strengths and combined forces would never attack and be able to defeat each other (because the cavalry archer would effectively counter and defeat the attacking swordsman), and the game will become dull. With this aid, a combination of archer and swordsman will be able to win battles, which is quite logical.

I think this is a system that AI can handle. The vanilla CIV AI knew when to build swordsman, axeman or spearman. So it "understands" that x is strong against y, but the current system of Realism Invictus is way too complicated with everything having bonus and malus against everything. Some have malus while attacking melee, some have bonus while defending against ranged... So the confused AI always builds the strongest unit available, which is Horsemen, which don't really have any countering units anyway. For example AI wouldn't even build a spearman, because it doens't consider spearman as a countering unit for horsemen. Actually, horsemen gets even bonus against melee units!

---
Alternatively (or additionally), I would recommend an anti-mounted aid provided by spearman, which gives bonus against mounted units and decrease the collateral damage suffered from them. But the AI doesn't understand the aid system yet, so...
---
Maybe you may find it a bit unfair that, the spearman beating a 2-3 times more expensive horsemen. Maybe again additionally, we can modifiy the barracks that it gives 2 XP to mounted and the stable additional 3 XP, so that a newly trained horsemen has the opportunity to get the shock promotion immidiately, which will make the well trained horsemen a dreadful unit. (If someone is ready to invest in those buildings of course)

 

[teks]

Maybe consider merging the foot knight and the regular knight into one national unit as well. History never made a distinction between the two anyway. (that I know of at least, except the english mixing dismounted knights and longbows, which if you think about it, only further distorted the actual power of the longbow.)

 

[teks]

I have the feeling that the developers are confusing Civilization with Age of Empires II. In AOE, the Paladin (a kind of heavy cavalry, for those who don't know) is the strongest unit. An encounter of 100 Paladins and and 100 champions (the most powerful swordsman in the game) would result in a win of the paladins. Similarly in Realism Invictus, the Swordsman is awarded a strenght of 6 and the classical-age cavalry with 7. But actually, in normal wars, a company (or group or division whatever) of foot soldiers is larger than a cavalry company. so I think, in Civilization games, a swordsman unit represents -let's say- 1000 men, but a cavalry unit represents -let's say- 500 mounted soldiers. But I think, the designers of Realism Invictus simply assumes, that every unit has the same amount of fighting men in it. That means: one mounted soldier should be stronger than a foot soldier = Classical-age cavalry -> 7 str, Swordsman 6 str. And the AI then produces simply the strongest unit, very similar to the fact that many Age of Empires players would mostly produce Paladins.

No, I think your underestimating the power of an elite soldier atop a battle-trained horse, both wearing the best armor their civilization can offer, and focusing that power onto the point of a spear.
The horseman has more armor, more reach, more speed, more weaponry, more training, and more money. Later on when they invent the fixed lance boring down all of the momentum of the horse, the soldier, and the armor focused on the small point of a 10-14 ft specialized spear which will be considered the most terrifying weapon of war until the invention of a proper musket/cannon.
What is being misrepresented is the cost of such a unit.

You could think mathematically; that a larger number of footmen would eventually bring down the heavy horsemen, but in practice few men have the heart to withstand even the initial charge. Only pikemen provided a safe counter to such units provided they weren't outflanked.
If the most common weapon of that time period, the spear, could hard counter the most expensive and powerful weapon of that time period, the heavy horse, then there would have been no record of heavy horsemen, because they would have never existed.

In a more modern perspective, would you say infantry trump tanks on the open field because they outnumber the tanks?

That said, the AI probaly is producing too much cavalry because of their higher strength, and this could maybe be remedied by reducing the strength and adding %bonuses. Although, with all the unique units, this is very difficult.

 

[Manco Capac]

That said, the AI probaly is producing too much cavalry because of their higher strength, and this could maybe be remedied by reducing the strength and adding %bonuses. Although, with all the unique units, this is very difficult.

Also the points, irrc.

The vanilla CIV AI knew when to build swordsman, axeman or spearman.

Not really, otherwise, when doing an horse archer rush, instead of starting an axeman, the AI should starts spearmen. Or simply said, spam spearmen, which they never did. And when attacking, we wouldn't see crazy stuff like an all catapults stacks. K-mod isn't vanilla AI, but an enhanced one that deals situations a bit better.

 

[Manco Capac]

Honestly, I fear any changes that would be done on mounted units. If no changes are made in K-mod dll to consider the changes, some AIs will be even more negatively handicapped.

To give an example (sorry for being redundant), in PAE mod about realism of ancient times, it is ridiculous how the AI's shoot in their feet by overproducing mounted units where they have -50% against cities IIRC. Even deity on PAE is ultra easy simply because it was decided mounted units should be diminished in power despite the original vanilla civ4 considers mounted units high on to-be-trained units list.

What the OP noted is a slight lack of realism, I consent on this, but that may make the AI a joke like seen in the said mod. To me, trying to make mounted units weaker is a crutch to make the player invincible against mounted units when in builder mode.

 

[civman110]

Really it seems like the only possible way to solve the mounted unit problem is to come at it from many different angles.

Realism Invictus is way too complicated with everything having bonus and malus against everything. Some have malus while attacking melee, some have bonus while defending against ranged... So the confused AI always builds the strongest unit available, which is Horsemen, which don't really have any countering units anyway. For example AI wouldn't even build a spearman, because it doens't consider spearman as a countering unit for horsemen. Actually, horsemen gets even bonus against melee units!

This is also contributing to the problem. I'm glad you pointed that out. I really have no clue what can be done there...

Another problem is the mounted units collateral damage vs. forts and walled cities. This is the only reason why large cavalry stacks are able to take walled cities (by slowly wearing you down). I don't even know if it's possible to add anything to walls and forts that would reduce collateral damage, and even if this was possible there is the problem of how to specifically stop collateral damage from mounted units... so, it seems that the only way to improve this is to nerf mounted unit attacks on walls, forts, and castles.

The problem is that I don't even know if the AI will recognize that they shouldn't attack with all mounted units.

I think the biggest problems between mounted units and citiy attacks lies with their immunity to first strikes, collateral damage, and withdrawal chance, however, I also feel that all of these abilities are vital to the unit's role as a counter to large stacks of doom.

My ideal knight would be limited to around 3-4 units, and 3-4 units of dismounted knights. They would all have an additional gold maintnence cost, and they would cost much more to build. In exchange, the mounted unit would have a large grassland/plains strength arranged in such a way that pikemen become the only unit that is even a threat to the knight at all, but they would only be a hard counter by cost effectiveness. Longbows will keep their attack bonus against mounted, but similiarly, they are only better off because they are cost effective. The only real coutner to a knight until gunpowder would be another knight, which would work real slick because knights attack other mounted units first in combat. Furthermore knights would have a larger withdrawl chance. To counter their grasslands bonus, walls and forts would have their bonuses vs mounted doubled.

The foot version would gain the knights immunity to first strikes as well since they are equally armored foot variants, and they would also have a small withdrawal chance to help preserve the value of their increased cost.

I doubt its possible, but It'd be cool if the knight's heal speed could be halved as well.

I like a lot of your suggestions, especially the +1 gold cost for knights. Not only is this more realistic, but it would surely discourage the AI from building entire armies of them.

I don't think foot knights should have a withdrawal chance. It is possible to increase their rate of healing, but personally I don't think that's necessary either. Instead I would add immunity to first strikes (like you suggested) and give them a small bonus to city attack.

The mounted knights already have immunity to first strikes, a 10% withdrawal chance could be nice. They are already quite powerful and IMO worthy of a +1 gold cost.

I also agree that pikemen should be cheaper to build.

Alternatively (or additionally), I would recommend an anti-mounted aid provided by spearman, which gives bonus against mounted units and decrease the collateral damage suffered from them. But the AI doesn't understand the aid system yet, so...

Good idea. I like it, but like you said they don't understand the aid system...

Increasing walls, forts, castle defence vs. mounted units could work like Teks and SR-71 suggested... I'm not sure what that amount would be... doubling it seems like too much IMO and tbh, I don't think a bonus on grassland is necessary for mounted knights. I think they are already powerful enough. Also, this would only help them out attacking cities on grasslands as well.

Hi! I'm very proud and happy to tell you that after modifying the defense of Walls and Castles against mounted units (I've doubled walls percentage and increased a bit Castles ones) I've observed that results are better and a bit more accurate. I must try them in the long run, but at first the results are very interesting.

Are the AI still building tons of mounted units to attack cities? If they don't realize that this is a bad strategy increasing walled defences could be a big problem. AIs suiciding large stacks against cities is no good. If this is happening I would rather deal with the large stacks.

If this is the case perhaps it would be wise for mounted knights to cost +1 gold and foot knights to not have this cost, in hopes that the AI will choose to diversify its army. It might make sense to leave the foot knights as they are now and only alter the mounted knights, but this would still negatively effect earlier eras...

Among the problems:
- how making this units powerful on field but weak in cities (att/def) ?
- how forbid the built on only-cavalry armies ? IRL, only a very civs were using such armies.
- how limiting the number of cav units in your army ? Cav units should represent only a part of the army (up to 40% in Renaissance, up to 20% in Industrial, up to 10% in Modern era - these values are examples) ?

1) The only thing I can see working is increasing fort, wall, and castle defence against specific units and lowering their city strength (I'm sure everyone has already thought of this tho).

2) That's a tough one... The +1 gold cost that Teks suggested would help at least with the knights.

3) But then what about civs like the Mongols? What if the AI/player has already built a ton of mounted units in the era before the cap becomes more restrictive and has already exceed the new cap upon entering the era? Do you disband a ton of units to build the better ones, which would negatively effect your military's power, or do you pay to upgrade (which may not always be possible)?

Limiting the amount of units would be very nice if there were no unintended consequences.

Honestly, I fear any changes that would be done on mounted units. If no changes are made in K-mod dll to consider the changes, some AIs will be even more negatively handicapped.

I worry about this too. Good point.

 

[Horatius]

One could just increase their production cost slightly with each new unit of the same type on the map, with the exception of a few civs. This is easily doable.

You guys are, of course, all fans of "realism" (whatever that means in a game....) but, really, games without large numbers of >1 move units are just tedious.... No way realism > playability tends to work in the long run with the Civ IV engine.