2 or more "Kings"?

[White_Knight]

Finn,

I did some testing last night and I couldn't reproduce your result of the King being attacked first. He was always attacked last even when his defense rating was several times that of the other units in the stack with him. I tried toggling off the "King" AI strategy flag, and both of the regicide modes, with no effect. This is true of both the standard King units (Caesar, Cleo, etc.) as well as a modified ground unit with the King flag added. Maybe you could upload your test scenario in which the King-flagged swordsman is attacked first? That would help track down what's going on.

I haven't gotten around to trying out a King-generating Wonder yet, but it's in the pipe.

 

[FinnMcCool]

This is just another example:

I've created a mod where the Persian Immortal upgrades to a new unit, the Sheik, which is marked as a "king" unit, and can build an army.

I'm giving all UUs extra abilities. The Persian Immortal has no ability other than the "upgrade to" entry is SHEIK. The Sheik, now, is a King unit (supposedly unbuildable) that has Attack 0 Defense 0 and can build an army. Leader is NOT marked. King IS marked.

Well, I built an Immortal in a city with a Barracks. The very turn I built it, it did NOT show up in the city screen, but instead, the build queue showed SHIEK! The math makes sense: Shiek in 95 turns, which would be correct since Bagdad has a 10 Sh/turn and the Sheik costs 1000 shield (with 40 shields for the Immortal + 10 shields for 1 turn build...)

Is this a bug? How can I have Immortals actually appear, and participate in combat, only to eventually be upgraded to Sheik?

In my test scenario where I made Swordsman a "king" unit, he would stack with a Warrior, and always take the hits before the Warrior. In this Sheik scenario, I never got the chance to test whether a Sheik will take hits first. I was only testing the Immortal-upgrades-to-Shiek thing. Personally, I'm not convinced that the "king" flag is useable.

 

[White_Knight]

My guess would be that you gave the Immortal and Sheik the same technology/resource requirements, and in the eyes of the game that makes the Immortal obsolete because the Sheik is clearly the superior unit (as judged by its sheild cost). This must somehow circumvent the "can't build King units" behaviour - which is somewhat useful to know, actually!

Have you had your Golden Age yet? If so, you should be able to build your UU until that happens, regardless of the presence of possible upgrade paths.

I still can't explain why your upgraded Swordsman King took hits first. Hopefully this weekend I'll have more time to play around with some of this, including the King-spawning wonder and the intricacies of upgrading to Kings. I'll post my findings once they're coherent.

 

[vingrjoe]

In sea combat I have yet to see one of my King units take hits first. I've seen my King unit (a battleship) fire off a salvo before combat begins, but then another ship engages the attacker.

 

[FinnMcCool]

Lots and lots of different opinions here. I'll try to distill it (partly for my own sake, to clarify it all in my mind)

1. Some claim marking a unit "king" lets them take hits last. My test did not bear that out, but I had regicide OFF. Not tested it with Rcide ON yet, but I will...

2. My test with Rcide OFF made a king unit unbuildable, but a unit could upgrade to it.

3. One test didn't put a king unit in the build queue. Another scenario did. In another post, one comment was that natch, the Sheik would appear since it had no prereqs, and the Immortal became obsolete. OK. True, but at least the first Immortal should have appeared on the board, and it didn't.

4. So umm... I need to set the Immortal to upgrade to Sheik, and give Sheik a prereq, so the Immortal isn't obsolete, and turn regicide on, and see if the Sheik is buildable. ? Am I right?

 

[FinnMcCool]

No no, no, Finn! (this feels really strange. I'm talking to myself)

The Immortal becomes obsolete whenever the Sheik becomes available. So, I need to find out how to make Sheiks unbuildable which is what I thought marking king would do, but it doesn't.

But it did in the Swordsman combat test. What's the difference folks? I distinctly remember avoiding Bronzeworking since I wanted to work with Warriors. Built Warriors, upgraded one, and continued building Warriors. Is that a special subroutine, since the only available units were warriors and swordsmen? And swordsmen were marked king so "could not be built"? And had Iron Working (not the resource) as a prereq which the Shiek does not?

This'll take some testing. I'll post my findings, with Rcide on and off etc...

 

[FinnMcCool]

I have to go to work today so I haven't tested out all variables yet, but I did test out the original scenario further.

Bagdad and Kandahar both have a barracks. Bagdad is building a wonder, Kandahar a Spearman. I switch Bagdad to Immortal (once acquiring Iron) and it builds, the unit doesn't appear, and Sheik is in the queue. Kandahar finishes the Spearman, I go to the queue and Immortals does appear in that queue! Bagdad is building a Sheik and Kandahar is building Immortal.

So, even though Sheik has no prereq, I can still build Immortals.

Regicide and Mass-Reg are both OFF.

(scratches beard...)

 

[FinnMcCool]

Finn,

I did some testing last night and I couldn't reproduce your result of the King being attacked first. He was always attacked last even when his defense rating was several times that of the other units in the stack with him. I tried toggling off the "King" AI strategy flag, and both of the regicide modes, with no effect. This is true of both the standard King units (Caesar, Cleo, etc.) as well as a modified ground unit with the King flag added. Maybe you could upload your test scenario in which the King-flagged swordsman is attacked first? That would help track down what's going on.

I haven't gotten around to trying out a King-generating Wonder yet, but it's in the pipe.

I found it.

A quick test before I rush off to work (and I can't do Civ at work) I found where THAT little glitch is coming from. My archer/artillery units have stealth. I have several specialized units (assassin spy 007 stuff like that) who have a very specific stealth-attack target list, and I specifically did NOT include Kings for them, but long long ago when I gave stealth to Archers, I included Kings. I thought of scenes like Braveheart where the King himself was in the field, and thought that well-placed archers... well, that was awhile ago, and I've come to my senses in more recent unit modifications.

So I tested the warrior-upgrade to King swordsman and you are correct, WhiteKnight. Kings take hits last. I stand corrected. (well, sit actually, as I bang on the keys)

 

[White_Knight]

Finn, I've tried replicated your Immortal-Sheik problem with my test scenario (described in more detail here ) but I couldn't get the King unit to show up in the build queue even when I followed the directions you gave two posts up. It's likely that we are not set up exactly the same, i.e. there is a flag somewhere that you have turned on and that I have turned off, but without a direct comparison of our respective test scenarios, it'll be hard to track down. I can PM you my scenario if you like.

 

[FinnMcCool]

Strange, how I'm thinking of the scene where Neo and Agent Smith meet in Reloaded. "Something copied, overwritten..."

I recall the moment when I switched the buildqueue from Wonder to Immortal, and I held down the key for a long time. Dunno why. But when I released it, Sheik showed up. I dunno if this is just a case of some random hiccup (I hope it is) but I'll be testing it in full detail in quick scenarios. Since I found the King-last glitch, it might be just one of those flags. PM me if you like, I can do same.

 

[FinnMcCool]

I created a test scenario, and set Swordsman NOT king, requires Wheel, upgrades to Immortal; Immortal KING, requires Wheel, upgrades to Sheik; Sheik is KING, requires Warrior Code, no upgrade.

Gave Persia the Wheel, NOT Warrior Code. Rome has WC. Bagdad built two Swords then a barracks. After building barracks, Bagdad is building a Swordsman. I upgrade 1 sword to Immortal. I have Wheel, Swordsman is in the build window (Imm, Sheik DO NOT appear in queue). Then I acquire WC from Rome. Bagdad is still building Sword, but on the turn I upgrade the Immortal to Sheik the build window shows SHEIK. Once only. If I change the build back to sword, Sheik disappears from the build list.