Armies

[Mentos]

Thal, ever thought about a balanced XP-system?

Example:

1. If difference between attacker.level and defender.level < 3 then normal XP for both units.

2. If difference between attacker.level and defender.level > 2 then minimum or no XP for superior and normal XP for inferior unit.

3. If city is involved then normal XP for attacker or defender.

This way, you would have a soft XP-cap shifting according to level difference. Minimum XP could be 1 so even too superior units get a little improvement.

 

[QDI]

I've been on a semi-break from modding the past few weeks so it'll be a while before I get around to major tasks like that.

And you expect us to believe you anymore?

Thanks so much for your work on naval units!

QDI

 

[Thalassicus]

@Mentos
Consider two hypothetical situations.

• Rifleman vs Swordsman: 1 hit kill with ~5xp.
• Swordsman vs Swordsman: 5 battles with ~25xp.

Superior attackers already get less overall experience per kill, which seems to be the same general goal you described. I don't see a need to tilt things much more in favor of equal battles.

@QDI
Inspiration and motivation are funny things, they can come at unexpected times.

 

[Mentos]

Well, I haven't noticed yet there is a diminishing return with XP gain.
I only thought about the Barbarian XP cap how to restrict it in another way.

Your situations sound still plausible to me:
The Rifleman only needs to pull the trigger once or twice, while the Swordsman has to work much harder to overcome its opponent. It takes much more skill to handle melee weapons than guns.
The less the effort, the less the XP.

Doesn't matter. Was only a thought.

 

[Thalassicus]

I'll explain differently...

Basically, your proposal's already in the game. Unit A that kills unit B in 1 battle gets 20% of the XP of a scenario that wins in 5 battles. This is the same as your proposal (lopsided victory receives 20% of the XP of a close victory).

If both were layered on top of one another, scenario #2 would result in 2500% the XP of scenario #1, which I feel is a bit extreme for only a 4-battle difference.

 

[Mentos]

In my cheated test-scenario, I've got a L9 Giant Death Robot with 390 Combat Strength assaulting a poor L1 Barbarian Brute with 8 Combat Strength.
The Brute is mush and the Robot gains +5 XP (right according to the "EXPERIENCE_ATTACKING_UNIT_MELEE = 5" setting in GlobalsDefine.xml)

The only thing I'd like to see in the game is that such encounter does give 1 or no XP at all, like an XP-cap, to the superior unit. Okay, a combat strength comparison would be better than a pure level comparison, of course, to judge how much XP one unit should gain.

This is just the same system like in certain other roleplaying games, where a level 20 champion doesn't gain any XP anymore if he slaps a level 1 goblin. This is besides the larger XP span between levels, like level 1 to 2 needs 100 and level 19 to 20 needs 1 mio XP. If this level 20 champion camps near a golbin cave with endless spawns, it will still sometime gain a new level, even with only a 1 or 5 XP gain, like in CiV.
The only issue I have with CiV is that powerful level 1 units, like Robots, still gain as fast XP than any other unit, no matter how tough the opposition is. I like to see a more effort based system what is much more exploit-proof.

 

[Txurce]

In my cheated test-scenario, I've got a L9 Giant Death Robot with 390 Combat Strength assaulting a poor L1 Barbarian Brute with 8 Combat Strength.
The Brute is mush and the Robot gains +5 XP (right according to the "EXPERIENCE_ATTACKING_UNIT_MELEE = 5" setting in GlobalsDefine.xml)

The only thing I'd like to see in the game is that such encounter does give 1 or no XP at all, like an XP-cap, to the superior unit.

I disagree. Any further nerfing would make the XP system less fun for me.

 

[SlightlyMad]

In my cheated test-scenario, I've got a L9 Giant Death Robot with 390 Combat Strength assaulting a poor L1 Barbarian Brute with 8 Combat Strength.
The Brute is mush and the Robot gains +5 XP (right according to the "EXPERIENCE_ATTACKING_UNIT_MELEE = 5" setting in GlobalsDefine.xml)

The only thing I'd like to see in the game is that such encounter does give 1 or no XP at all, like an XP-cap, to the superior unit. Okay, a combat strength comparison would be better than a pure level comparison, of course, to judge how much XP one unit should gain.

I understand your reasoning behind this, but if you ever see more than one or two fluke situations like this in a real game, then the problem isn't so much how to balance it, but rather how to fix the horrible flaw that caused it in the first place. Real in-game combat is going to be at most 1-2 eras apart, and the game even tends to do well enough to avoid real situations from history, like Isandlwana, where spears fought rifles (and actually defeated them, although that's another discussion entirely).

 

[Thalassicus]

In an RP game, the purpose of the experience cap is to encourage high-level players to move on to areas appropriate to their level.

In CiV that doesn't apply. If we're conquering and all our foes have weak units, we can't go to a higher-level area with appropriate XP gain for our level.

In your example, a GDR receives only 5 experience from defeating 1 unit. If the GDR fought an equal match against another GDR over 5 battles, they'd receive 25 experience from defeating 1 unit. The player receives 500% more experience from the equal matchup.

 

[Catastrophe90]

I noticed something while playing full version TBC+UP 6.7 (haven't disabled anything). The only other mods active are Legendary Earth (shouldn't have any conflicts) and a Remove-Exp-Cap-From-Barbs one (its literally one line of code, so there shouldn't be any problems here either). I've cleared my cache too, just in case.

The thing is, Artillery are rendered obsolete with Rocketry. This is sort of annoying to me because, as an enjoyable artillery spammer, it means that, should I be Oil starved (or want to build up some armored brigades), I'm out of luck. No more Artillery for me. I think that the slow and clunky Artillery should remain available even beyond Rocketry, to complement the more powerful and more agile but resource-consuming Rocket Artillery. Just as in real life, where the majority of a country's artillery batteries still use towed artillery pieces while a select few regiments get self-propelled pieces. Is it simply due to some random typo or is it a deliberate change? If so, I'm curious of what the reason behind the change is.

 

[Mentos]

Yeah, my example with the Robot and Brute was extreme of course. A similar result could also happen with the typical human units with experience level 5+ with all the dozen extra bonuses by policies and wonders.
With such soft cap, you would have a similar mechanic like the Free Research Balance where weak nations get a boost to catch up. The human will always position its units smarter in small force and keep on gaining XP, while the AI has to rely on its random goofiness and difficulty buffs.

@Catastrophe90
True, there is also still the Anti-Tank Gun lingering in Future era, so why not always-available Artillery that costs no strategic resources?
The flavor settings should be adjusted somewhat, so the AI won&#8217;t unnecessarily build rather Artillery instead of Rocket Artillery if it has the resources available.

 

[Thalassicus]

In the late-modern era there are two types of artillery: Bombers and Rocket Artillery. The only time regular artillery would ever need to be built is if you're starved for both Oil and Aluminum. This situation is probably rare enough for late-game conquerors that having Artillery on the production list just adds clutter.

If you like using Artillery in the late-modern era though, it's easy to put it back on the list by removing this section from BC - Upgrades.xml

<Update>
<Where Type="UNIT_ARTILLERY" />
<Set ObsoleteTech="TECH_ROCKETRY" />
</Update>

Does anyone else have thoughts on the subject?

 

[Txurce]

I just focused on the fact that three cannon barely put a dent on an AT gun because it's range vs range, but the AT gun can attack a city. Nothing new here, but is there a way to make an AT gun behave like a range weapon?

 

[Thalassicus]

It's easy to make anything range or not, though I'm not sure how much impact it'd really have on an average game. AT guns shouldn't be terribly common.

 

[Txurce]

It's easy to make anything range or not, though I'm not sure how much impact it'd really have on an average game. AT guns shouldn't be terribly common.

The AI doesn't go as overboard on them as they used to, so it's not a big deal. Like I said, I saw one of those anomalous examples where it made no sense, so I brought it up. I'd view it as one of those back-burner internal-consistency items.

 

[truetom]

Is there a simple way (i.e. one file to edit) to remove instant heal for all players?

 

[Thalassicus]

@truetom
Add this to the top of "BC - Promotions.xml"

    <Update>
        <Where Type="PROMOTION_INSTA_HEAL" />
        <Set CannotBeChosen="true" />
    </Update>

 

[Babri]

Just a little suggestion. Change spearman back to 7 or make them more expensive. Right now they much better than Warriors because :-

• They are as cost effective as warriors rendering warriors useless.
• They get a bonus against mounted units.

Changing spearmen would make UUs like Jaguars & Maori more valueable.

 

[truetom]

@truetom
Add this to the top of "BC - Promotions.xml"

    <Update>
        <Where Type="PROMOTION_INSTA_HEAL" />
        <Set CannotBeChosen="true" />
    </Update>

Love ya.

 

[Txurce]

Just a little suggestion. Change spearman back to 7 or make them more expensive. Right now they much better than Warriors because :-

• They are as cost effective as warriors rendering warriors useless.
• They get a bonus against mounted units.

Changing spearmen would make UUs like Jaguars & Maori more valueable.

I'm not sure about this. Warriors are an earlier unit - spearmen require two techs, cost more, and upgrade to pikemen (as opposed to swords/longswords).