[Complex] (7-NS) Recon Units Line Rework

[Yngwie]

Problems of recon promotions:

Bottom line: same old problem – conflict of double movement and ignore terrain cost. (3 tiles in flat land vs 6 tiles in forest for recon Units)
Top line: Survivalism I, II, III + Medic I, II = immortal Units (30-35HP heal every turn) which never used by AI –a game feel less fair. More than that – with this pack of Promotions Unit’s heal rate in friendly territory is lesser (25) than outside – that’s weird.
Common problems: Recons have few promotions in Total. Current Recon Promotions don’t look like line of Special Forces (Guess they supposed to be kind of Elite). Personally I believe they should resemble Rambo-like characters, Ninjas, Special Agents and other cool things.

So, the Main part of Proposal:
All Recon Units lose the ability to "Ignore terrain Cost". All other changes are mainly related to recon tree promotions. However, some of them affect abilities / movement points of some recon Units

Spoiler Proposed Promotion Tree :

Spoiler Current state of promotions affected by changes: :

Trailblazer
+10% CS outside friendly territory
Double movement in Forests/ Jungles

Trailblazer II
+10% CS outside friendly territory
Double movement in Desert/ Snow
Ignore ZoC

Trailblazer III
+10% CS outside friendly territory
Can Embark, enter Mountains, use enemy roads/railroads

Frogman (requires Railroad)
no combat penalty for attacking from sea or over rivers
1 movement to embark or disembark

Scouting III
+1 movement

Survivalism I
25% CS when Defending
+5HP outside friendly territory

Survivalism II
25% CS when Defending
+5HP outside friendly territory

Survivalism III
Heal every turn even if performs action
No movement cost to pillage

Scavenger
Gain 5 XP when pillaging improvements

Commando
Can Withdraw from Melee

Spoiler Proposed changes (bottom line): :

Trailblazer I:
+1 Movement

Trailblazer II:
Double movement in Forests, Jungles, Snow, Desert and Hills

Trailblazer III:
Can enter Mountains and heal there
3 tiles paratroop with Glider from Cities, Mountains and Hills at cost of 1 movement point

Trailblazer IV:
invisible to non-adjacent Units in land
Can enter rival territory without open borders and use rival roads/railroads



Frogman I (requires Trailblazer I)
Crossing a river cost 1 Movement
No penalty attacking over a river
Double movement in Marshes, Rivers

Frogman II
Can embark
1 movement to embark / disembark
No penalty attacking from ocean

Frogman III (requires Dynamite tech to be chosen)
Unit is Invisible and have +100% Defense when Embarked
Gain range attack on naval Units with 200% of CS when Embarked



Scouting I (same as before but requires Trailblazer I)
+1 Sight

Scouting II (same as before)
+1 Sight



Mines I (requires Trailblazer II)
Enemy Land Units lose 1 Movement and have -10% CS if start the turn in adjacent tiles

Mines II (requires Dynamite tech to be chosen)
Enemy Land Units lose 2 Movement and take 10 Damage when entering adjacent tiles at their turn
Immune to Mines II effect



Commando (require Trailblazer III)
Can Withdraw from Melee
+25% Defense against ranged attacks

Spoiler Proposed Changes (top line) :

Survivalism I
+15% Combat Strength
Ignore ZOC

Survivalism II
+25 HP
Fight at full Strength even when damaged

Survivalism III
-5 Damage from all sources
Once in a turn can survive at 1 HP before got finally destroyed



Engineering I (requires Survivalism I and Engineering tech to be chosen)
+50% Combat Strength vs Cities

Engineering II (requires Engineering tech to be chosen)
+20% attack Cities to this and adjacent Units

Engineering III (requires Engineering tech to be chosen)
+20% Defense to this and adjacent Units



Living Shield (requires Survivalism II)
After killing an Enemy gain immunity to next attack on this Unit



Gas Attack (requires Military Science tech to be chosen, requires Survivalism III)
+15% when attacking.
Damaged Land Units have 5 turns status -2 Movement point and lose 5HP per turn.



Screening (no change from standard, requires Survivalism III)
+10% Flanking bonus
Count twice for flanking in combats not involving this Unit



Infiltrators (no change from standard, requires Survivalism III)
15% CS outside,
15% attack on wounded,
10% CS if not adjacent to owned Units



Cover I (no change from standard, requires Survivalism I)
+25% Defense against ranged attacks

Cover II (no change from standard)
+25% Defense against ranged attacks

Spoiler Proposed Central lines (already existing promotions) :

Medic I, II / March (no change from standard)
Air Defense I, II, III (no change from standard)

Spoiler Scavenger promotion change and Recon Units changes: :

Scavenger: Gain 5 XP when pillaging improvements + No movement cost to pillage.

Commando: Trades “Commando promotion” for Scavenger buff

Paratrooper: Trades “no movement cost to pillage” for Scavenger buff, gain 3 movement

Special Forces and XCOM Squad – New “Frogman I” instead of Amphibious, gain 3 movement

Spoiler Rationale :

Bottom Line: These changes help to get rid of movement conflict by excluding "Ignore terrain Cost" and maintaining double movement in some terrains. Separation of Land and Water promotions in bottom line make it more structural. Additionally, bonuses for combat in land are deleted to make these line more about non-combat game

Top Line: Now top line is mainly about effective Combat, Protection from enemy Units and also about support role of Special Forces. Healing every turn now available in Central lines as ordinary March

Central Line: With new Central line even AI can create a healing machine, though now healing is only 20-25 per turn (same for own and neutral territory). Air Defense is added because it was not clear for me why Recons don't have this line even though they are used in late warfare and moreover know planes really well (Paratroopers)

Scavenger and Units change: That's not fun if your Unit is designed to pillage but can't do it fast enough. Therefore it is proposed to add no movement cost to pillage to scavenger. Units changes: additional movement is needed cause with proposed changes recon Units should become slower than before. Replacing amphibious with new "Frogman I" is just an attempt to avoid same effects from different promotions

I understand that it's too huge change. Also I know that there could be problems with implementation of some promotions. Therefore, any Counterproposals would be great. It's also ok, if the Proposal ends up being split.

 

[Stalker0]

I understand that it's too huge change. Also I know that there could be problems with implementation of some promotions. Therefore, any Counterproposals would be great. It's also ok, if the Proposal ends up being split.

MAGI: This statement is a bit concerning, as it suggests the OP is not fully comfortable with this proposal as written, and is more hoping this will draw in "proper" proposals in the form of counterproposals.

That is not the intention of a proposal, if you are looking to generate ideas and brainstorm that should be done through the forum threads.

So I'm checking, @Yngwie are you comfortable with this proposal if it were to pass just as it is?

 

[Tekamthi]

As I read the proposal, it's certainly complete and detailed -- I think @Yngwie is just acknowledging that the scope of his proposal takes things a little far from status quo. Whether all the theorycrafted details are actually achievable, that's another question, but it seems valid in this pre-sponsor phase of Congress imo.

For example:

Unit is Invisible and have +100% Defense when Embarked
Gain range attack on naval Units with 200% of CS when Embarked

To make a melee unit toggle to ranged when it embarks would require use of database features I've never seen used in vp or other modmods, old relics of whoward code that's sat untouched for a ~decade.

I *think* the structure exists in database for a unit to convert to another unit type as it enters a different domain, but it's not something we use whatsoever afaik. Should it be? If the functionality exists, works as expected, and the feature adds depth or interest without tedium, seems a shame to me to leave already-developed functionality sitting idle.

@Yngwie you may want to add some reference links to last round's proposals on this topic. FYI congress has grappled with this topic almost every round, and always reaches an impasse. You may find there is some burnout on these concepts, just from the frequency with which they've been (unsuccessfully) raised. The proposed features really push the boundaries of database, so may be difficult to get sponsored on this -- on the other hand, this proposal is materially different from any we've seen so far, that might be good.

You might consider pruning things back a little to achieve the most important changes this round, propose some of the more exotic bells and whistles next round, if successful. It's a lot to digest on many levels.

Speaking very generally, we are divided between the pro- and anti-ignore terrain cost models, and it's been this way for years... Much to my chagrin, the ignoristas continue to rule over us all with their forests-faster-than-flat tyranny

Anyway, welcome to the anti-ignore resistance!

 

[azum4roll]

Bottom line: same old problem – conflict of double movement and ignore terrain cost. (3 tiles in flat land vs 6 tiles in forest for recon Units)

Again, that's not a problem.

And I'm not going to repeat why removing Ignore Terrain Cost is bad for the starting Pathfinder - you can read up on that in the previous failed proposals.

 

[hokath]

Well the proposal is kinda epic. I agree in spirit, but in practice it feels too big to go through without testing and so forth. Things this big really need to be modmods first in my opinion.

This topic dates back to the first congress, where removing the Ignore Terrain Cost as base was passed but not implemented:

[Vote] - (1-18) Proposed Replacements For Trailblazer Double Movement Promotions

Voting Instructions Players, please cast your votes in the poll above. Vote "Yea" for every proposal you'd be okay with if it were implemented. Vote "Nay" if you'd be okay if these proposals weren't implemented. You can vote for any number of options. All votes are public. If you wish, you can...

forums.civfanatics.com

In contrast the previous session it was kinda all over the place with like 4 very different ideas.

I personally think there are issues with the scouts.
1) upgrade ruin + xp on reveal + survivalism III can just win you an early war by itself sometimes
2) one or two scouts can basically reveal the entire map, which massively devalues all subsequent explorer-line units -- this is just how the game plays, but I don't really like it.
3) double movement in rough terrain can make scouts almost impossible to catch, which is frustrating and can be used to bamboozle the AI to sending troops away

Point 2) is the main reason I think ignore terrain cost should go

 

[ma_kuh]

As someone who argued adamantly for a change in previous discussions, I think we need to cool it on recon line rework attempts for a session or two. Let's try to focus our collective efforts on other game aspects rather than open this can of worms again.

That's all I'll add to this discussion this time around.

 

[Tekamthi]

And I'm not going to repeat why removing Ignore Terrain Cost is bad for the starting Pathfinder - you can read up on that in the previous failed proposals

You should test drive the "core0" and "core2" component of my "recon pay..." modmods -- if you haven't visited in a while, I redesigned everything after last congress. While a little gamey sounding in text, the result is satisfying.
It becomes very viable to mix and match tb/SV, as a bonus to fixing the starting Pathfinder balance problem... anyway this starting Pathfinder problem is solvable with a little creative thinking!

The REAL problem that emerged from discussion through multiple rounds, is that the VP congress electorate wants some kind of fast recon. Removing ignore removes fast recon, people would rather these fantasy forest highways than always slow recon. I've come up with other solutions there too, but I am reluctant to package any of em up as a proposal... My modmod recon movement solutions work well, and can live as modmods with full compatibility indefinitely, as long as recon remains status quo....

 

[Yngwie]

So I'm checking, @Yngwie are you comfortable with this proposal if it were to pass just as it is?

Of course, this would be the best outcome.

 

[Yngwie]

You might consider pruning things back a little to achieve the most important changes this round, propose some of the more exotic bells and whistles next round, if successful. It's a lot to digest on many levels.

Anyway, welcome to the anti-ignore resistance!

Nevertheless, I would like to propose the concept as a whole, despite its large scope.

Thanks for the encouragement)

 

[Tekamthi]

There are some things here that, while not outright impossible, would require DLL work to accomplish. Generally on this recon stuff the sentiment has been that any solution should come from database-only changes. It's not a rule but on this topic it might as well be treated as one.

For example, the making of a unit immune to attack after combat -- I could maybe figure out some Lua workaround to accomplish this but there's nothing like it in database currently afaik.

Or making a unit able to paradrop via glider -- I think you'd be stuck with just existing paradrop animation, we can't change it to depict a glider, not easily anyway.

Sponsors have been very picky on this topic. Anyway you're welcome to join in discussion on our existing "no ignore" solutions in modmod sub, it's been just a niche thing so far, but I have a few threads going to explore how we can improve recon, and we are somewhat freer to consider exotic features as modmod vs congress

 

[azum4roll]

I would recommend the new promotions be separated into a new proposal (or a couple of them for each of Frogman and Mines lines). Those aren't directly related to the rest of the changes.

 

[N.Core]

Frogman III (requires Dynamite tech to be chosen)
Unit is Invisible and have +100% Defense when Embarked
Gain range attack on naval Units with 200% of CS when Embarked

Even this one requires a hefty bit of DLL work. Invisibility stuff is hardcoded by the game. Some work needed to be done to make it moddable.
I'm also refraining from overhauling stuff that was just overhauled by the last session of VP Congress. Please give it a break and prioritize other things instead.

 

[Recursive]

Timestamp post to arrange all the threads in a neat order.