Altering Modern Weapons

[killaman]

I'd like to alter modern weapons/units so that they are more realistic in their balance against older units. I am specifically talking about weapons.

How can I do this?

I and many others will greatly appreciate your help. Thanks.

 

[BrentRitchie]

You need to look in the CIV4UnitInfos.xml file. This is where each unit is defined. Many options to play with.

 

[killaman]

Cool thanks. I'll try it out.

 

[WildWeazel]

Probably the easiest and most realistic thing to do is make unit strength grow exponentially through the ages. For example, an ancient unit with strength 4, a medieval unit strength 8, industrial 16, modern 32. Then work the individual units around that model so there is a smooth but rapid progression.

 

[killaman]

Do you know what values I need to change for that to happen. I found iCombat and iPower. What is the difference and what do the other variable in CIV4UnitInfos.XML do?

 

[WildWeazel]

I don't know. I would guess that iPower is the unit strength. Isak is working on an XML API. When he finishes that, we will know a lot more about the tags.

 

[Zurai]

That's almost exactly the progression used, WeaselOp

Ancient:
Spearman (4) to Swordsman (6 - which is in the "classical" era, between Ancient and Medieval)

Medieval:
Long/Crossbowman (6) to Musketman (9)

Industrial:
Rifleman (14) to Infantry (20)

Modern:
Mechanized Infantry (32)

 

[WildWeazel]

Well however it is now, it should change at least twice as fast. A crossbowman should not have more than about a 2% chance of defeating a rifleman.

 

[Zurai]

Why not? Crossbows shoot about as far as a civil war era rifle (with any accuracy anyway) and are about as powerful. The reason riflemen were so huge is they tended to be MUCH better trained (crossbows were nice because, unlike longbows, they were cheap to make and anyone could use them with little to no training).