(9-032) Change How "Heal Every Turn" Abilities Work

[pineappledan]

Motivation:
Currently, heal every turn effects are a boolean 0/1 ability that makes your unit heal the full amount of HP that they would recover if they had fortified for the turn. This means that this ability stacks with things like Medic, Fountain of Youth, and Survivlism I/II. The ability to heal as if fortified each turn nearly wipes out any benefit to NOT moving/attacking/pillaging with the unit that turn. This removes a tactical choice to heal units.

Proposal:
- Create a new integer column for unit promotions that allows units to heal a defined amount each turn, regardless of action (this can actually be done with existing vanilla code but it's kind of a mess)
- Change all healing effects from "Heal as if fortified regardless of action taken" to "heal an additional 10 damage this turn regardless of action taken"

Affected promotions:
March, Survivalism III, Air Repair

Tactical considerations:
A flat 10 HP heal each turn would stack with fortification. So you could heal even faster if fortified.

For example:
A survivalism III scout currently heals between 15-20 HP depending on if they are in owned or neutral land every turn, regardless of action.
With this change, a survivalism III scout would heal 10 HP if it takes an action, and 25-30 HP per turn if it chooses to fortify and heal
This would slightly reduce the power of "super scouts", because they would be easier to pin down if they were not healing their full fortified HP without ever having to stop.

A fighter with Air Repair, a Hospital, and a medic garrison can heal 35 HP each turn, even if it attacks
With this change, that same fighter would heal 10 HP every turn if it attacks or rebases, and 45HP if it fortifies for the turn.
This would greatly weaken the power of Air Repair and open up other promotion options for air units. The power of air repair to make air units consistent, endless sources of per turn damage without ever having to stop flattens the air promotion lines.

This brings back the tactical value of having a unit skip a turn and take no action.
Another potential value for this is that March is generally considered a weak promotion for melee units, because they spend so much time defending in 1 place anyways. This would make March a viable promotion for units that are designed to hold ground.

edit: I forgot that the defense malus was removed on march

Complex Proposal: DLL + Database Changes

 

[Chinag]

I like this change. March is quite silly especially with Khan's Medic I and II. Although I do believe March doesn't give -10% CS anymore?

Medic I/II, Survivalism I/II and other sources giving health would have to reword themselves to mention that they wouldn't affect this new healing source though. Maybe the new healing effect should itself mention that it's not affected by other healing boosts.

 

[pineappledan]

The synergies with all the bonus healing sources actually made these heal every turn promotions harder to understand and harder to balance. I can't understand how they have survived this long.

There is a massive difference between heal every turn with and without medic/FoYouth/GoProtection/Hospital/Immortal. Why was an ability this swingy allowed to persist?

 

[hokath]

It's a good idea.
The vanilla code version of this is indeed extremely ugly. It hacks the old Kris Swordsman promo that damaged you, but changes it to heal instead.
However, I'm not sure it can be done in friendly territory?
It would be great if a DLL sponsor could clean this up.

 

[KlHannibal2]

I see the point for air repair. On the other hand, I really like Immortals advancing in front of medic archers. That is a strong combo, but not game-breaking compared to what other civs have. Immortals upgrade to pikemen, which are still bad despite the armor plating. They can be killed by AIs before their healing kicks in. Hoplites next to 3 or 4 friendly units, or Legions, can still take more punishment than an Immortal in a single turn.

And that is generally a factor for melee units that makes me go for stalwart more often than for march. The fact that units have a higher chance of survival which allows them to heal at all.

I sometimes go for march on melee cav when I'm defending. The cav can retreat to safety after getting a kill, like in a city or next to a medic, and get a massive heal. It can then attack again next turn. That allows me to get the same number of kills with fewer cav units, over time.
Taken together, I would orefer to keep march as it is. Maybe change air repair.

 

[notaspambot]

I'm a bit confused at the moment, so apologies if I sound pedantic but, fairly sure that bombers currently do not have access to Air Repair, and that the -CS on March was removed already, right?

 

[KlHannibal2]

I'm a bit confused at the moment, so apologies if I sound pedantic but, fairly sure that bombers currently do not have access to Air Repair, and that the -CS on March was removed already, right?

Now that you mention, I remember picking logistics on bombers, but air repair was gone and only available for fighters.

 

[pineappledan]

edited the OP.
I forgot that march no longer had the -10% CS malus, but it doesn't really change the argument
I used a bomber in the air repair example, but only fighters have access to air repair

Maybe bombers could be given back air repair since it would no longer be completely busted with this change.

I really like Immortals advancing in front of medic archers.

This combination would be intact. Immortals would be able to heal 10 hp on move and 40 HP in neutral with their combined fortified heal with medic II and march promotions. Weaker on movement but stronger when holding ground.

 

[FPXI]

Very good change. Love it, actually.

 

[Tekamthi]

if heal-related DLL changes are going in, i'd ask for even more customizability, such as HealFrom column on a per feature/improvement basis. ie HealFrom = 1 in UnitPromotions_Features for forest gives 1 hp when moving into a forest and/or ending turn there with unspent moves. This is tangential to OP though, the suggestion is good

 

[Recursive]

This does require minor DLL changes but should be pretty easy to get the AI to understand it. Just a change to the heal rate.

That being said, this proposal would qualify as complex because it requires both database and DLL changes. Changing a number to another number doesn't qualify as complex, but adding new tables/columns does.

 

[paul_soryu]

So just to make it clear, it is a 5 HP increase of March-healing in enemy territory? Currently it is 5 HP (5 HP if fortified), and it will be 10 HP (15 HP if fortified).

Also if land Medic affects Air Units, does it also affect Water Units, and should it? I might start training a couple of medics just to assist my fleets.

 

[pineappledan]

naval melee can already learn medic

 

[Anarcomu]

I would just change the wording from :

• "heal 10 damage this turn regardless of action taken"

to :

• "heal an additional 10 hit point this turn regardless of action taken"

to make clear that the base heal still apply if you fortify.
Otherwise, a solid proposal, I like it.

As an alternative, you could heal at least 10 HP each turn, so the promotion won't benefit fortified units, if the intent is to encourage always using the unit.

 

[pineappledan]

The intent is to not overwrite fortifying to heal as a tactical choice. I think that is best served by the March heal not interacting at all.

 

[Anarcomu]

You would want to change the name of the promotion, March is very clear about the design.
You could also add a "+5 heal on neutral and enemy territory" to March, so fortifying in enemy territory would still be interesting with proper medics. You get bonus defense from fortifying too.

I don't know if my idea is feasible anyway, might not need to discuss it at all then.

 

[Alpakinator]

So just to make it clear, it is a 5 HP increase of March-healing in enemy territory? Currently it is 5 HP (5 HP if fortified), and it will be 10 HP (15 HP if fortified).

That's a pretty major balance change. Not saying it's bad, but i suspect it is. For one it makes choosing the Drill promotion line clearly inferior to Shock, since March becomes typically even stronger. It's clearly better than Stalwart for defending in enemy territory.

 

[paul_soryu]

That's a pretty major balance change. Not saying it's bad, but i suspect it is. For one it makes choosing the Drill promotion line clearly inferior to Shock, since March becomes typically even stronger. It's clearly better than Stalwart for defending in enemy territory.

Before this proposal for some reason I thought March healed for 10, like in the base game, now that I noticed it doesn't I question if it is that good. Let's assume a unit is being hit once for 4 turns, in that time it will heal 20 HP, which is not bad, but it depends on how much would Stalwart save. It seems these two promos are effectively doing the same thing, but March is worse in enemy lands (+5 HP) compared to friendly lands (+10 HP or +15 in Cities). Should it be land dependent? Stalwart isn't

 

[Alpakinator]

Before this proposal for some reason I thought March healed for 10, like in the base game, now that I noticed it doesn't I question if it is that good. Let's assume a unit is being hit once for 4 turns, in that time it will heal 20 HP, which is not bad, but it depends on how much would Stalwart safe. It seems these two promos are effectively doing the same thing, but March is worse in enemy lands (+5 HP) compared to friendly lands (+10 HP or +15 in Cities). Should it be land dependent? Stalwart isn't

Yes, right now +5hp/turn in enemy land is worse than Stalwart in enemy land.

I meant that the +15hp/turn in enemy land after this proposal passes is clearly stronger than stalwart.

March is generally better than Stalwart right now but that's only my opinion. I don't want to make it even stronger in most cases for the benefit of weakening the numerous edge cases the OP listed. EDIT: it won't make 'most cases' stronger, nvm. Healing in enemy territory is common and current march with medics II nearby is arguably stronger than this proposal march.

Btw. default healing (eg. no medic) is 20hp in you cities, 15hp in your land, 10 in neutral, 5 in enemy.

 

[paul_soryu]

Btw. default healing (eg. no medic) is 20hp in you cities, 15hp in your land, 10 in neutral, 5 in enemy.

Oh right I knew I forgot something, I remember March being much better in friendly lands. I think it is a somewhat strange quirk of this promotion, and it is kinda strange that a "defensive" promo (Stalwart) is better on the offence, while a more proactive one is better on the defense. But March could also be enhanced by Medic, I like to take it on my infantry units after I have March in the late game.

So current March can get to +15 HP/Turn while taking action even in the early game, but it needs more setup. The proposed change won't benefit from Medic, so +10 HP/Turn while taking action is max you can get. Also defending units in friendly territory will be able to heal for 25/30 HP/Turn, but that would also make March even more good and universal compared to Stalwart.

I agree with both that not moving with March being a waste isn't satisfying, and that 10/15 HP/Turn in enemy lands can be too much, which would also overshadow Stalwart. I think +5 HP/Turn would be more balanced (for enemy lands, less good for friendly lands, could be +5 for enemy and +10 for friendly territory), as it doesn't change how much you heal with taking action, but it does give you an opportunity to double your healing rate if you fortify. Notably, since units still heal only 5 HP if they're in friendly territory, but a city it belongs to is still in Resistance, it will allow to heal faster after taking cities when you don't need to move. And that's only if you took March.