unit progression

[Deliverator]

I would say the biggest thing is to have a more gradual and steady increase in unit strength over time. The situation the Ahriman describes where you get a unit that is massively more powerful than another one, only one or two techs later needs to be avoided.

Also we need to come up with a game plan for what we are going to do about Hero units and Leader units. That regicide thread seem to get as far as the creation of a unit to represent the leader.

 

[keldath]

ok,
i need your thoughts:

do you guys want me to count three uus to each civ? or should i made the minimum of 2 - and some will have 3?

or -

the factions that can import good needed for certain units - how about this system:
for instance: house corrino - needs to build sardukar coop in order to build elite sardukar,
this unit replaces the regular sardukar - that also requires sardukar coop resources - but - the thing is - that if another faction - tades sardukar coop with corino - it gets access to the regular sardukar.

this will allow - factions will be able to access a bit weaker unit of a house's unique unit,
by trading the unique resource imported by a civ.
it will encourage tarding between civs of the imported goods, as well it will allow access to more unique units, without damaging ahouses strengh/balance by allowing another house to build the same unique unit you own.

the sardducar - a unit with 20 city attack 15 city defense - higher then regular units at the same tech era.

the elite sardukar - gets a bit higher bonus - 30 to both city attack and city defense

so the difference will be minor but still will give some advantage to the original house.

how about that? do i have a go for launch?
plz write me cause im halting progress till you guys authorize me to do this.



**
p.s i love units.

 

[davidlallen]

I don't see a strong reason to stop progress. We are going to need to keep tuning the bonus distribution anyway, so we can certainly keep tuning the UU's. I think no civ should have more than 2 UU, unless there is a strong theme reason for 3. I am hoping that the civ unique ability (eg Harkonnen slavery) will create a big difference between the civs, and we will need to tune that also. Once we *have* unique abilities for all the civs, of course.

 

[keldath]

mmm ok,

i dont want unit spamming though, but, theres need to be order with them.

i think ill set a minimun of 2 units per civ - some will have three, those with the 2 civs - we need to give other powers to compensate -
i was thinking -
for example ferning - right now theres only one uu for them - how aout ill add one more,
and then - say they get an imported good named X for now - this resource - is needed to build special building that grant a power promotion to certain units, or something like that.

 

[keldath]

ok guys, this is what i ask and plan:

as i said, there was a lot of miss match between units, units were replacing units from other tech eras and classes.

i rather stick to the 3 uus per civ, i think it allows to create better diversion between units.

most of the civs, will have the imported good unique to them, and one of the uu of that civ - will need atleast one of the unique imported good to be built.

for each of these unique units based on unique bonus - there will be a sub unique unit -
this unit is similar to the unique unit of the faction, only a bit weaker then it.
only factions that will trade with this faction this unique bonus - will have access to this sub-unique unit.

some factions - will have units that doesn't require an imported good, they will still some sort of bonus produced or improrted, these faction will use the imported bonus for another thing - some sort of a buliding that will give some advantage - like a special promotion/exp or something else.
also - in the same manor - civs who will trade this good, will gain access to this buildng based on the imported good.


i think what i described will create some interesting diversity between factions and their units in battle, it will encourage to trade the imported goods to gain access to the unique stuff

later - we can use the event contract system to replace the unique building that imports the unique bonus - so that it will kinda be random for each time - that you can choose what ever contract you want, and gain access to its unique properties - a certain unit/building.


units is one of my strong parts which i love to work on,
i fixed and tweaked many tags on my 1.3.9 which due to this weekend.


write me your thought,

guys,
i really hope that you like what i suggested, i think its capturing what deliverator created on patch 1.3.8 along with my unit reflection,

plz, write me your thoughts.

 

[Deliverator]

I agree with your basic concept that the units allowed by the imported goods shouldn't be as powerful as the true unique units.

Rather than having sub-standard versions of units, I think it would be better to have to just have some true UUs that are better than the shared units. So for example, the Sardaukar Cooperation bonus allows production of the Sardaukar by any civ that can obtain it. But Corrino have the best Sardaukar retained for there own use, represented by the more powerful true unique units, say Bashar of the Corps and Burseg. That way the other factions get real Sardaukar rather than half-baked ones. I'm happy to have three true UUs per factions and then one or two that are shared by the civ's bonus resources.

This is pretty much exactly what you suggested here:

the sardducar - a unit with 20 city attack 15 city defense - higher then regular units at the same tech era.
the elite sardukar - gets a bit higher bonus - 30 to both city attack and city defense
so the difference will be minor but still will give some advantage to the original house.

I also think the unique units should have some more interesting powers/abilities/spells than just the vanilla ones.

In terms of david's contract code, I think the Landing Stage should stay to give the initial civ unique bonus resource. Then when you build the Space Port you get an opportunity to choose a couple of other imported resources to add to your civ one.

I like the idea of using Imported Goods for buildings and things other than unit prereqs. The Banqueting Hall is meant to be a very simple example of this. The more diverse ideas we can come up with the better.

 

[keldath]

ahh great im so happy you agree with me buddy

perfect - i agree on the use of both contract and the ubs.

then i will create the whole thing for all of the civs.

awesome.

 

[Ahriman]

So for example, the Sardaukar Cooperation bonus allows production of the Sardaukar by any civ that can obtain it.

This could get a bit weird, particularly if you are able to receive these resources by building a spaceport rather than just trading with them; you coudl get the situation where you get the Sardaukar resource, build Sardaukar units and then use them against the Emperor in battle. I guess it depends; do we think these guys are a Varangian Guard (loyal to the Emperor always) or a Praetorian Guard (easily bribeable)? My feeling was the former - particularly in a world where there are high levels of conditioning.

 

[keldath]

well the names of the units can be changed - sardukar can be only for the empror, and say, imperials troops can be build with the unique bonus.

 

[Deliverator]

Could we make it impossible for Sardaukar to attack Corrino units perhaps?

Or if you go to war with Corrino all Sardaukar disappear as they are recalled?

 

[keldath]

mm....that probably will need some Sirius python...

maybe giving it some large minus againt attacking other sardukar...?

hees a thought for an sdk tag - <bcannotattackciv>civilization_......

on the unit infos...

any volunteers? ..

 

[Deliverator]

The ideal might be that any Sardaukar you have built switch to fighting for Corrino if you go to war with them. You might need to have an additional warning that this is going to happen if you are about to attack them or declare war.

 

[davidlallen]

So for example, the Sardaukar Cooperation bonus allows production of the Sardaukar by any civ that can obtain it.

This could get a bit weird, particularly if you are able to receive these resources by building a spaceport rather than just trading with them; you coudl get the situation where you get the Sardaukar resource, build Sardaukar units and then use them against the Emperor in battle.

Maybe I did not explain my concept very clearly. In my concept, if the Corrino civ is in the game, the *only* way to get the SC bonus is to trade with Corrino. The picklist that you get upon completion of a contract contains only, your unique bonus, and the bonuses of other civs which are not in the game.

We can certainly discuss further, but I think the idea of a weaker unit buildable by this resource gets confusing. For example, why should Ecaz Mentats be stronger than other civs' Mentats? For Sardaukar, there is only one way where my proposal can lead to Sardaukar fighting against the Corrino. That is if you are friends with them and they trade you the resource, then you build the unit, then you attack them later. In this case you will no longer be able to build more Sardaukar, but you can still use the ones you have.

Does this make sense?

 

[keldath]

maybe some event mechanism?

thats triggered by attacking a certain civ?

 

[Ahriman]

The picklist that you get upon completion of a contract contains only, your unique bonus, and the bonuses of other civs which are not in the game.

This sounds good to me.

 

[Deliverator]

Maybe I did not explain my concept very clearly. In my concept, if the Corrino civ is in the game, the *only* way to get the SC bonus is to trade with Corrino.

I agree. My only distinction would be that I always want each civ to have their own unique bonus resource before they get to pick other ones. This is currently the role of the Landing Stage building. I am not viewing the Space Port picker as a replacement for the Landing Stage level buildings, but as an expansion of importing to include other items.

We can certainly discuss further, but I think the idea of a weaker unit buildable by this resource gets confusing. For example, why should Ecaz Mentats be stronger than other civs' Mentats?

I agree, as stated a few posts back.

For Sardaukar, there is only one way where my proposal can lead to Sardaukar fighting against the Corrino. That is if you are friends with them and they trade you the resource, then you build the unit, then you attack them later. In this case you will no longer be able to build more Sardaukar, but you can still use the ones you have.

Ahriman raised the point that this circumstance is bad from a theme point of view. I agree. The Sardaukar's loyalty is famously unbreakable. Count Fenring tells the Baron that they are even prepared to lie if instructed and say that the acted without orders in helping the Harkonnen's, in order to protect the Emperor's reputation.

So it would be nice to make it impossible to use the Sardaukar against Corrino however we achieve it. I'd like friendship with Corrino to be a strategy that you can use to get to build Sardaukar and use them against other civs. But you shouldn't be able to use the Emporer's own Sardaukar against him.

 

[davidlallen]

My only distinction would be that I always want each civ to have their own unique bonus resource before they get to pick other ones.

We can implement that with a single building by forcing the first contract to be the civ's unique one. But, it seems to me that I might *want* to choose some other available unique bonus first. Is there a reason to prevent that option?

So it would be nice to make it impossible to use the Sardaukar against Corrino however we achieve it.

I agree this would be a nice addition; I have no idea how to implement it. Do you think it is completely fatal to allow Sardaukar purchased while you were friends with the emperor, to attack the emperor? I could rationalize it by saying that you purchased them fairly and they are now unshakably loyal to *you*.

 

[Ahriman]

But you shouldn't be able to use the Emporer's own Sardaukar against him.

If you can only get them through trade, then this would be very rare; you have to have had good relations and *then* have a war. And in this case it seems plausible; if the emperor lends some soldiers to the Harkonnen and they then work with and live with the Harks for several years, its not implausible that years later they might support their new master in a conflict. They have "gone native" so to speak. Think Dances with wolves or Lawrence of arabia or whatever.

Is there a reason to prevent that option?

Flavor. It should always be easier to access your own homeworld resource. And if that resource is less valuable initially - so be it. Thats part of the balancing at the faction level, not the individual mechanic level.

 

[davidlallen]

OK, I accept that the earlier tech should just give you your unique bonus, and the later one should let you pick any available.

 

[keldath]

ok finished adding the ecaz units along with setting 3 uus to each civ,
now gonna implement the unique bonus system.