5-Formations

[anhu]

Hello,

Inspired by another tread on this, I made a small mod to increase the number of men in each unit to five. If only I were to change the group size in unitinfos to five, this would be very easy, but I decided to also change the formation; otherwise they would always form a circle, which is not very intimidating...

Some things to note:
-I'm assuming the wave number has nothing to do with strength. I tested thius with 2 groups of 50 warriors (with wave numeber 5) against same group and another against another with same strength and 3 wave number. No difference, in fact, the unit with the lower wave number slightly more damage
-If you looked at the screenshot, you'll see that tanks, sieges, ships, planes, and machine gunmen are not affected. Take note of that
-Mounted units have only 2 extra men, so their total number is 4, opposed to 2...
-I've only tested this once so I'm sure there'll be some mistakes


To install, place the two xml files into -My Documents\My Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 4\CustomAssets\xml\units

Oh, and enjoy! Comment, suggest, etc.

UPDATE: one for patch 1.52. Everything is original except the formation numbers and wave, I swear!

 

[ACEofHeart]

Very nicely done

You might want to include that it doesn't work with currently saved games tho.. I thought I installed it wrong at first..

 

[snafusmith]

This is awesome, I'm so glad you made it... I like my units to be smaller (fit the city and terrian graphics better) and this mod makes them even cooler! THANKS!

 

[MattJek]

looks awesome... I tried doing this myself but I had the problem with the units forming a circle. I also change the size of my individual units to make them smaller.

 

[Takeno]

Very good. This makes the units seem much more like armies, instead of a few units on their own.

 

[Kushan]

Does this affect all units in the game or just the ones shown? Will it affect custom units?

Kushan

 

[anhu]

Glad to see some happy replies.

Kushan- essentially, the main part of this "mod" was the formation coordinates, where I specified where the individual should be placed for idle, fortified, fighting, etc. situations. The other (minor) part comes from only telling unitinfos how many individual units are in the unit itself. So, in stead of those ugly, oversized, circular formations, you get a more pleasing look. So the only units that do not fall into different formations would be tanks, planes, ships, machine guys, but you can change the number of them so that they do group into five knowing they won't make an ungly circle.

So five is the number I'll keep this at, seeing how Firaxis already had the coordinates for fours. Go to something like ten, and the coodinates for all numbers under that will have to be added. The main part is speed, since making it go any higher and it'll take much longer for a fully sized army to attack a weak, and therefore single unit comprised of only one man. The only solution to that would be turn off animations, but that kinda defeats the entire purpose of having high-numbered formations, eh?

 

[ACEofHeart]

Is it just me or has this stop working after the patch...
I see the files still in the directory, I started a new game and but still do not see the new formation..

 

[jello1717]

Hi--

I've played around with this mod and I like the way it looks, but I noticed something today. I noticed that the SAM infantry have had their 50% bonus vs. helicopters increased to 200%. Was this intentional? If so, what other game altering changes have you made in this mod?

Thanx.

 

[drachasor]

Hi--

I've played around with this mod and I like the way it looks, but I noticed something today. I noticed that the SAM infantry have had their 50% bonus vs. helicopters increased to 200%. Was this intentional? If so, what other game altering changes have you made in this mod?

Thanx.

Wether he intentionally included the change in the mod I don't know, but the bonus SAM Infantry get against Helicopters is 200 in his mod file and 50 normally, so that was changed intentionally at some point.

-Drachasor

 

[anhu]

I must have changed this for testing or something then later have forgotten about it. Sorry! I’m sure it’s an easy error to fix, so I’m sure this doesn’t warren a new attachment. Just change 200 to 50, and then the change is undone!

 

[jello1717]

Yeah. I figured it was something like that. Instead of scrubbing your file to find anything else that was changed, I just started from scratch and changed the group size in the new file. This combined with your formations file works perfectly.

Thanx a lot for the mod. I like the look of these formations much more.

 

[Roman Legion]

Why is there artillery in the water???

 

[AstroCat]

Could please upload this new fixed file? Just to be sure? Thanks!

Yeah. I figured it was something like that. Instead of scrubbing your file to find anything else that was changed, I just started from scratch and changed the group size in the new file. This combined with your formations file works perfectly.

Thanx a lot for the mod. I like the look of these formations much more.

 

[DemonDeLuxe]

I like the idea VERY much. In fact, I would love to have as many as a dozen figurines in each unit because I outright HATE that "single-puppet-appeal" (ok,make it 3, but these are ARMIES; dangit! And 1000 Settlers!) in the original game.

2 questions, though:

a) How taxing is it hardware-wise? Does it put a lot of additional rendering load on the machine? If so, huge maps would be unplayable for me

b) Does it have ANY effect on gameplay? Does it influence the outcome of battles in any way?

 

[Abaddon]

very nice work!

 

[jello1717]

Could please upload this new fixed file? Just to be sure? Thanks!

I would do that, but I've made my own changes to the file (like making SAM Infantry anti-tank units)

a) How taxing is it hardware-wise? Does it put a lot of additional rendering load on the machine? If so, huge maps would be unplayable for me

I haven't had any problems with it, but I generally play on standard sized maps. My machine can handle huge maps just fine, so I don't think that a decrease in performance caused by this mod would be noticeable on standard maps.

b) Does it have ANY effect on gameplay? Does it influence the outcome of battles in any way?

In the limited testing I did, there isn't a difference. I did the tests with my own file and mine is a little different than the OP's so I'm not sure if this would affect the results. The major difference is that I only changed the groupsize, while he changed groupsize, wavenumber, and 1 more thing I think.

Anywho, for my tests I used musketmen and musketeers from 2 non-agressive nations (no combat 1 upgrade). They have the same attack strength and neither have any bonuses against the other (I placed them all on ground with no defensive bonuses). I made one of the groups have a 5-formation and the other had the default 3-formation. I did about 500 attacks (250 for each type of unit attacking and defending) and they each won about 50% of the time.

Besides the look, there's one other effect of which I can think. When you fight (with animations turned on) you get to see (are forced to watch?) all 5 units die, so the individual battles take longer. I like this, but maybe others won't.

 

[AstroCat]

Could we get clarification from anhu if there is any effect using his files after the 200 to 50 fix?

I really want use this mod, but I also want to make sure the effect is visual only.

Thanks for the help!

 

[anhu]

If it's really that needed, then I'll post the correct files without any other mod soon.

Two extra men probably won't affect computer speed- I would be more worried about the jungle and tree animations instead (which I'm trying to change, with no luck so far).

As for gameplay, two extra men and waves do not affect strength or odds. Some other units are by default different, notably some mounted and all tanks. Tanks especially should be underpowered if the formation matters, but they're not weak, by far. Coupled with this observation, my tests earlier, and jello's test, I can conclude that this will only affect the graphics, not the gameplay (aside from the mistakes I left in).

So, ya, new file will come soon (hopefully).

 

[AstroCat]

Thank you for the clarification and thank you for the mod!