A couple of mod ideas/requests/whatevers

[AndrewBot88]

So, I have a few ideas, wanted to see if anybody else is interested in them.

1. A fairly simple mod, just either allows you to select a few different map types to have your game in randomly, or a new map type that will select one of the "normal" (archipelago, continents, etc.) map types at random. Was just thinking something like this would be nice because I don't always want to know what's out there, but I don't like maps like north vs south, or lakes, etc.

2. This ones quite a bit more complicated. Basically, when you unlock a new unit, as well as unlocking that unit, you unlock different pieces from it to put on new units. For example, let's say you've unlocked modern armor. Now, as well as simply unlocking the Modern Armor unit, you've unlocked a few different things to change on it. You could put more armor on (meaning a separate offense/defense score might be required), providing more defense at the cost of mobility, or vice versa.
I know it doesn't sound so great so far, but I think if you add this next bit on it gets better. Some technologies you could research multiple times, to unlock better things for your units. Sticking with the modern armor, let's say you research lasers. Now you have the unit, good. But let's say you research lasers again, you can get better armor/guns/engines/etc. You could also have a limited number of points to spend on a given unit, so if you want the faster engine, you're going to have to sacrifice firepower.
The end result of all this is to mix up the battlefield a bit. Instead of having two practically identical tanks go up against each other, which is entirely unrealistic, you have two different combatants, each with their own strengths and weaknesses.

If you read all that, thank you, and what do you think?

 

[Putmalk]

I actually think #2 is less complicated than #1. #2 can be accomplished with clever use of promotions, while #1 I believe would require an immensely complicated LUA script with options selected in "Advanced" on game setup.

Some things in #2 are completely impossible as of now, I believe. Such as researching technologies twice, that isn't possible unless you have two techs: Lasers 1 and Lasers 2, which could distort the tech tree (you might be able to hide this by sliding Lasers 2 under Lasers 1, but the tech tree will look horrible, trust me). Plus this may hinder the AI completely, as they'd probably spend their time researching multiple technologies instead of branching out and researching other techs that could be more useful.

 

[Spatzimaus]

Some things in #2 are completely impossible as of now, I believe. Such as researching technologies twice, that isn't possible unless you have two techs: Lasers 1 and Lasers 2

Actually, you CAN make repeatable techs. There's a <Repeatable> flag, which in the vanilla game is only used for Future Tech, to where you can research it over and over again. Once upon a time the game would break if you tried to make any earlier tech have that, but some people have said that this was fixed a few patches back. Haven't tried it myself, though.

Also, you could make a tech depend on this repeatable tech, but it couldn't depend on having a certain number of times a given tech was researched (although there ARE Lua functions to find out how many times you've researched a tech). And the cost for each instance of the tech would be the same (although I think they actually added in an option to increase this progressively, in the last patch). But there are some nice things you can do with this, if you tie it to a Lua function. For instance, in my mod, every time you research the repeatable tech at the end of the tree (Future Tech or Transcendent Thought, depending on which mods you're using) it gives you a permanent +1 Happiness.

Plus this may hinder the AI completely, as they'd probably spend their time researching multiple technologies instead of branching out and researching other techs that could be more useful.

This, as always, is the real problem. The AI's decision will be made based on Flavor ratings, and so it won't see any difference in desirability between the first level of the tech and the tenth.

Now, you could combine the two approaches. You research Lasers and it unlocks the Modern Armor unit; you can then research Advanced Armors (a repeatable dead-end tech that depends only on Lasers) as many times as you want. That way, you can give Lasers a high Flavor and the repeatable tech based on it a much lower value, so that the AI won't waste too much time on it.

The problem is the benefits. You can't have level 1 of the tech give one effect while level 2 gives a different one, unless you use Lua. And there's no easy way to cap it, so it COULD still get the AI caught in an infinite loop. You could use Lua to manage this (at the start of the turn, all units get +X% to attack strength, where X is the number of times you've researched the tech), and if you did it as a start-of-turn GameEvent the AI wouldn't have problems with it. But you wouldn't be able to make it very flexible, and it has some other limitations (no effect on ranged attacks, for instance)..

 

[The Little One]

Not sure about the technicalities of those request, but as for the first one, doesn't selecting random map type pick one of the three main ones?