[154.2] Vanilla bug?. Embarked defense greater for ranged units than for melee

[Pep]

In the first image you can see the approximated damage inflicted by my Frigate to the embarked Levy (calculated strength: 5) is 19. In the second image, the approximated damage inflicted by my Frigate to the embarked Trebuchet (calculated strength: 22.4) is 5.

It seems the calculated strength of embarked melee units is always 5, so even an embarked Mech Inf can be easily sunk by Caravels. This bug is also in Vanilla, so maybe it's in the game core and it's not fixable by mods. What seems odd is the greater strength of embarked ranged units. I don't know if it's in Vanilla too or not. If not, ranged units could be tweaked to adjust their embarked defense and perhaps it also could be done with melee units.

 

[Thalassicus]

Ranged units attack and defend with strength, and melee units attack & defend with strength. Embarked units do not get special combat handling - it acts exactly like they're on land.

05 damage = 15 Frigate vs 16 Trebuchet
19 damage = 15 Frigate vs 10 Levy (also includes defense and camaraderie promotions)

 

[Pep]

Ranged units attack and defend with strength, and melee units attack & defend with strength. Embarked units do not get special combat handling - it acts exactly like they're on land.

05 damage = 15 Frigate vs 16 Trebuchet
19 damage = 15 Frigate vs 10 Levy (also includes defense and camaraderie promotions)

So embarked defense works correctly with ranged units and not with melee ones. In fact, the embarked strength of the Levy is being calculated as 5 instead of 10 (as it should be). Same happens with modern melee units, no matter how much strength they have. The strength of any embarked melee unit is 5 . This is a vanilla bug I reported months ago. I don't know if it can be fixed in this mod. I hope they would fix it in because it's an annoying bug.

 

[Thalassicus]

The global defines table has this value:

5 = EMBARKED_COMBAT_STRENGTH

My opinion is fixed strength is a bad design for embarked units, but it's not technically a bug since Firaxis intentionally designed it this way. What should we set this to? I'm thinking 20 might be a good middle ground between early and late.

 

[Pep]

The global defines table has this value:

5 = EMBARKED_COMBAT_STRENGTH

My opinion is it's a bad design for embarked units, but it's not technically a bug since Firaxis intentionally designed it to work this way. What should we set this to? I'm thinking 20 might be a good middle ground between early and late.

I completely agree: it's a very bad design. The main problem I see with Civ 5 is that it was rushed. Melee unit's embarked defense should depend on unit's strength just as it works already with ranged units. If we change the value of EMBARKED_COMBAT_STRENGTH then we have the following problems:

• If it's too low (as it's now), any vessel from caravels to battleships can sink the embarked unit in a single shot.
• If it's too high, ancient vessels couldn't sink embarked units.

I would say 10 to allow triremes being useful. Of course with this value ironclads will still sink anything with a single shot.

 

[Txurce]

I would say 10 to allow triremes being useful. Of course with this value ironclads will still sink anything with a single shot.

5 worked for me, just as 5 worked for me playing Songhai way back when. I thought it gave the AI a chance, but still allowed for naval effort. 15 destroys the military value of pre-industrial naval units, and just about turns sea tiles into land ones. That said, putting it at 10 would at least be worth trying.

Overall VEM is working really well for me right now from a game play perspective. About all I would tinker with is the size of the AI treasury. Raising it a little would help to eliminate the fraction of games in which empty AI coffers adversely affects the early game (no luxury trading, never mind RA's).

One of VEM's major accomplishments is how distinct the civs have become, from attitude to expansion rate to CS focus. I've realized that my overall performance in many games is significantly affected by who I was playing against. This makes it harder for me to compare scores sometimes, but makes the overall game much more interesting. (This is also an example of how Civ is inherently unbalanced, and how that lack of balance sometimes makes it a better game. The other major remaining factors are geography and CS composition.)