ADM Modification

[jwill]

Hi, I'm the new kid here.

I spent yesterday making a whole new edit in the "civ3mod.bic" file, and every unit's values are different. If you want to see it, e-mail me at jwillie194@netscape.net and I'll send it in an attachment.

Here's some of the many changes:

- All foot units have a movement of 2.
- All mounted units (except for the Rider, Cossack, War Elephant, and Samurai, if you would call the last two mounted) have a movement of 4.
- All naval units have movements of 5, 6, or 7.
- The English Man-o-War has a higher attack than the frigate but a slower movement.
- The War Elephant is (realistically) a LOT stronger than other knight level units, but moves a little slower (3 to be exact)
- The lowest attack in the game is 1, and the highest is 60.

E-mail me if you want it!

 

[Beamup]

Originally posted by jwill
- All foot units have a movement of 2.

Do you realize what a HUGE change to game balance this is? Retreat will now never occur (since ALL units are now "fast"), and the fundamental dynamics of warfare drastically change.

(edited to remove odd-sounding word choice)

 

[dojoboy]

Forgive Beamup, but sometimes we forget our manners around here.

Welcome jwill!

Concerning your mod changes, I'm a bit too conservative to make such alterations. There are a few things I'm interested in doing once we get the editor, but nothing along the lines of what you offer. If you don't mind telling, what is your reasoning behind making all the land units offensive in regards to movement? Are you a warmongerer at heart?

 

[DiamondzAndGunz]

Just a few things to say here.

- All foot units have a movement of 2.

As said by Beamup, this really isn't a good idea. I agree, they could move a lil faster, but the problem can be solved other ways (land transports, etc.)

- All mounted units (except for the Rider, Cossack, War Elephant, and Samurai, if you would call the last two mounted) have a movement of 4.

This, of course, was done to balance after adding a 2 move to all foot units, correct? Anyway, I probably wouldn't go as far as doubling them... Mounted units may have traveled faster in battle, but took just as long in travel. You can't just ride at top speed all day and night with the animals, they get awefully tired. Gotta stop to feed them, etc. I woulda kept it at 3 or so.

- All naval units have movements of 5, 6, or 7.

Yep, I definately agree that they should have increased movement. On the other hand, having all units with at least 5 movement is pretty bad. A galley with 5 movement? Can basicly explore the whole world before navigation/metallurgy. I would think a better idea is to give most units "treat all terrain as roads" and then also allow them to blitz. That could spice up naval action a bit.

- The English Man-o-War has a higher attack than the frigate but a slower movement.

Now, why would you go and do that? The Man-o-War already sucks as it is, why would you go and lower it's movement? I would just keep the movement, and increase the attack.

- The lowest attack in the game is 1, and the highest is 60.

60? Woah. What about defense? Surely you've also balanced the defense. Otherwise, it would just become all to easy...

Just some constructive criticism... Plz don't take it personally.

Moving on, this reminds me that I was gonna make a mod based on the PTW beta testers mod. Of course, some of the changes won't be possible... (ignore terrain penalties n such) But, I really loved some of those changes, and I'd think it would be fun. Some of the things I mentioned above in response to your changes were in that mod, so I can't really take credit for most of em.

and BTW, welcome to CFC!

 

[jwill]

Actually, I think there's a seperate flag determining if the units withdraw from combat or not. Also, since I've changed EVERYTHING, the Man-O-War has an attack of 10 instead of the frigate's attack of 8 (my modified one). The defense is balanced, most units have the same offense and defense, because i thought the old values didn't make a lot of sense.

There's good reason behind the Man-O-War's slow movement; I read in the description of the frigate that it was slower than the "light, fast frigate". The only reason all the infantry move "2" now is because I thought that time went too quickly for them to only move once per turn. You should see how much faster your workers will work and you can settle!

 

[jwill]

The read me's attached; it's a list of all the changed units.

Be aware that the Worker and Settler have movements of 2 instead of one.

 

[jwill]

I know this my third post in the last five minutes, but I put a little bit of thought into it..and yes, it does go against the withdraw from combat attribute. Whoops..if I get time, I'll edit one and make it that the foot units have a movement of one.

 

[DiamondzAndGunz]

Actually, I think there's a seperate flag determining if the units withdraw from combat or not.

Whether this is true or not (can't check now), a unit will NOT retreat if fighting another FAST unit. The game considers any unit with 2 or more movement fast.

Also, since I've changed EVERYTHING, the Man-O-War has an attack of 10 instead of the frigate's attack of 8 (my modified one). The defense is balanced, most units have the same offense and defense, because i thought the old values didn't make a lot of sense.

I would increase the Man-O-War to 11 or 12 or so, but 10 might do. I would still recommend keeping the movement, though. I strongly recommend against giving galleys 5 movement. This way, players even without the GL can explore other continents, unbalancing several things.

Having same attack/defence for most units doesn't really make sense. I mean, let's take tanks for example. They're great at offense in real life, no doubt. But they're lousy defenders if they have to defend against other tanks and such. Infantry, on the other hand, are built for it. If you've ever played any of those war games (can't remember off the top of my head), you might get the idea.

You should see how much faster your workers will work and you can settle!

That might be nice, but not really too realistic... Especially in the ancient age, and times before motorized vehicles. I've added an "Engineer" unit to my game (it's in the unit library, somewhere), which has 3 movement, I believe, and settlers and workers upgrade to it. It does the tasks of both, and only takes 1 pop point. I think this would be a better solution to their slow movement, but if you don't wanna go adding units n such, I guess your idea's ok.

EDIT: Yeah, I was writing up this post as you posted that last one. You can just edit a previous post instead of having to post 3-in-a-row to add 1-line information, btw.

 

[jwill]

I think I'll do this: I'll make a version with the same movement as usual, and put the new values in. Maybe I can get a little more assitance: Besides people with bows and arrows as well as tanks, who else has poor defense? I want to make this as realistic as possible.

 

[DiamondzAndGunz]

Well, the game as it is has the values in pretty good ratio's, except for several units here and there. If you basicly follow what the game has done already, you could make it just about even.

After modding the attack/def values, we can talk about other changes.

 

[jwill]

Excuse me for being late to post..I had a war with Russia and they needed to give me all their land

Any examples of "several units here and there"? I dropped the Modern Armor's defense to 35 (previously 60), the tank's defense to 20 (previously 45), slowed down the galley to a movement of 4, and dropped the Mech Infantry's attack to 35 (compared to 54).

 

[DiamondzAndGunz]

Well, Musketmen could be fairly balanced in attack/defense (3/4/1), unlike in the game (2/4/1), especially for their cost. Also, some of the underpowered UU's (F-15, Man-O-War, Cossack) could use a bit of re-balancing as well. The Marines and Paratroopers could (based on the default values) use some modifications on their stats, making them a bit more useful into the modern era. On the other hand, Modern Armor has a bit too high of a defense in the game, so it could use a bit of a reduction. That's basicly it for now.

 

[jwill]

If you ask me, the musketman should be a huge step above the pikeman, considering the fact that guns are much better than pikes. Then tanks should be a huge step from gunpowder. The rifle (Rifleman), replaceable parts rifle (Infantry), and then the machine gun (Marine) should all evolve into a stronger weapon. That explains the rifleman's 16, the infantry's 20, and the marine's 24 (which I changed to 26).

War elephants should be a lot better than knights, since getting hit by a sword isn't as bad as getting hit by an elephant's head..Samurai shouldn't move as fast as horses, unless there's historical proof that they were quick. Can anybody figure out what was so special about the Russian Cossack? If there's some advantage that they had, I could advance them with it.

 

[DiamondzAndGunz]

If you ask me, the musketman should be a huge step above the pikeman, considering the fact that guns are much better than pikes.

Yep, that's why it needs an extra attack point or so. The gunpowder technology wasn't too advanced/accurate back then, so increasing it too much would be pretty inaccurate.

Then tanks should be a huge step from gunpowder.

Yes, they should, but only in terms of offense. Tanks are suited for offense, and not defense, and are fairly vulnerable to infantry.

The rifle (Rifleman), replaceable parts rifle (Infantry), and then the machine gun (Marine) should all evolve into a stronger weapon. That explains the rifleman's 16, the infantry's 20, and the marine's 24 (which I changed to 26).

Mech infantry is basicly a combination of all advancements in weapon technology. It incorporates a vehicle the infantry can ride it, upgrades to their weapons, and all sorts of other upgrades in tech. The marine, on the other hand, is specially suited for amphibious assaults, so they generally aren't as defensive as infantry, but definately should be more on offense.

War elephants should be a lot better than knights, since getting hit by a sword isn't as bad as getting hit by an elephant's head..

But elephants are also slower/more vulnerable. There was some battle (don't remember, read it somewhere around here...), the horsemen rode under and around the elephants and such, and stabbed them from underneath. This scared the elephants as well, and made them stampede. True, they did then kill a lot of the horsemen, but they killed equally as many of their own men. So it would be fair to say that keeping elephants equal with knights is a good idea.

Samurai shouldn't move as fast as horses, unless there's historical proof that they were quick.

Once again, traveling via horse/foot in large groups is about equal in terms of time, and I bet they were pretty fast in battle. However, they quite frequently rode horses in battle as well (remember reading that somewhere as well...)

Can anybody figure out what was so special about the Russian Cossack? If there's some advantage that they had, I could advance them with it.

Supposedly, they wore some better, heavier armor. But I can't really back that up in any way.

 

[jwill]

That's all really interesting..I know the guns in th middle ages were inaccurate; just play Age of Empires. Well, I'll fix a few things here and there. The thing is, I am a teenager and I have to go to school and do a whole bunch of projects..so expect something good concerning this whole mod in the near future..I'll only change the movements back by request though, since I don't want to spend so much time doing it if no one's going to use it.

 

[DiamondzAndGunz]

Yep, I'm pretty much a full-time high school student as well, and I have played Age of Empires, Age of Kings, and Age of Conquerers.

I might be interested in the mod, depending on how things turn out.

 

[Sid]

Keep up the good work, jwill. As others have written, Firaxis have put a lot of thought into game balance. We'll always be restricted by the Attack-Defend-Movement numbers, when a more complex algorithym might enhance historical accuracy. For example, the Cossacks that you mentioned. They are tough clan-organised fighters, on hardy ponies, wielding lances. They are excellent against other calvary, but not so good against formed infantry (although devastating to a retreating army, as Napoleon discovered in 1813). The game needs a further dimension so that certain units have advantages against other unit types -- this could be accomplished by changes to the random modifier in combat.

In the meantime, mods such as yours provide novelty and fun to experience Civ3 in different ways, so I'll have a go at it when you post your final version in one of these threads.

 

[Txurce]

You may notice that on Firaxis' own description of the various UUs, they acknowledge that the traits are sometimes the opposite of the historical reality. The Immortal is a prime example. Their focus is clearly more on gameplay than on historical accuracy. Given all this, I couldn't agree more with Sid's point that the prime goal of mods is fun... however the modder chooses to define it.

 

[Beamup]

To paraphrase something often said about another game, Civ3 is a (pseudo-) historical strategy game - in reverse order. That is, gameplay takes priority over being strategic takes priority over historical accuracy. So, in particular, historical accuracy gets sacrificed on the altar of improving gameplay - IMO a good way of doing things.

 

[jwill]

The random fights are the most annoying things in the game. Take modern armor, for example. When attacking a city with an infantry fortified on it, it has a good chance of losing, and it makes almost no sense. Even in an early version of my mod, a whole army of three got destroyed by one infantry unit (60 vs 20 in my case, I got really mad). The random seed needs to change, and the A/D needs to change too. I can do one of the two, but that's to be done later, because I have a lot of academic related work at the moment.