Armies

[Koxpa]

I made some tests with Iron.
With "Bronze working" reveals but not apears on top panel

Spoiler :

Spoiler :

So i can build mine on Iron , i see Iron ,it gives me more hummers, but i cant build catapult or frigate :

Spoiler :

Spoiler :

On 2ond screen u can see that Iron stil needs Iron Working (in tooltip just up minimap)
I cant check Ironclad couse to get Steam Power u need get Ironworking anyway

I ll check about trade options with AI major civs or City States a little later.

P.S. Sorry for big screenshots.
P.P.S. How i can send PM on that forum ??i cant find that options (

 

[Joneill]

The mod only sets the <TechReveal> of iron to bronze working, not the <TechCityTrade>, which I suppose is what causes this behavior. Don't think it is actually bad, since the point of the change was to buff the beelining to swordsmen to bring it on par with horsemen, not to allow earlier catapults.

 

[Thalassicus]

Odd, I distinctly remember replying earlier! I must've forgotten to hit submit after previewing.

Well, in short...

@jacyp
I tested units vs cities balance in several eras of development. Sworsmen/cats vs walls, longswords/knights vs castles, mech infantry vs military bases, etc. I just used the rifleman example as it'd been mentioned in an earlier post.

Based on your feedback, I started a new game with the specific intent of testing city-assault balance. It's been a rather fun game, you can check out the thread here.


@jwallstone
Thanks! Those are the perfect changes for subs, I'll look through the details and include it in the next version. Did you add the Survivalism line directly, or modify it slightly? In particular I'm curious how the healing bonus works for ships.


@Koxpa
To send a private message, just left-click the name of a forum member. A menu pops up, private message is one of the options.

As Joneill pointed out, the purpose of the change was to simply reveal Iron sooner, like Horses, so it's not as much of a gamble as before. You can't actually work the Iron to make units until you have Iron Working (like how horses are revealed at Animal Husbandry, but can't be used until The Wheel).

That said, I don't think it'd be a problem if Iron's reveal and use are at the same tech, so Catapults could be beelined. Most people beeline to Horses or Swords, so perhaps this would provide an interesting third alternative? From playing my current game, I don't think Catapults are overpowered or anything, getting them a little earlier shouldn't make much of a difference.

Alternatively, I could add "Requires Iron Working" to the bottom of the Catapult tooltip. Either way would be easy, so it's a matter of which option would be better for balance.

 

[Koxpa]

About Iron issue .
If it was just for reveal to be equal for horses so no problem, then it is just normal )

@ Thalassicus
There is no such an option , mb i need to get some forum group or membership ?

Spoiler :

 

[jwallstone]

I just added the Survivalism line directly. It seems to work very well in my games.

Submarines are given much lower Combat values than their ranged combat values, which is the opposite of any other naval unit. They are fairly easily destroyed by other ships if seen, but can do high damage to other ships. The higher levels of Survivalism increase their defensive score, adding survivability, and allow it to slip away and heal up. I think it's a good fit with how the unit should be used.

The only change which might be good is to reduce their Combat score just a little bit, since survivalism boosts it quite a bit.

The healing bonus works fine for ships. It is a little redundant with Supply though. Not sure if that should just be left as is or changed.

One note is that the tooltips vs effects of Supply and Survivalism seem a little strange. Both add +1 healing in neutral or enemy territory, but Supply also has HealOutsideFriendly. Is that field necessary to heal at all? If so, I though survivalism allowed it too. The tooltip for Supply makes it look like +2 healing too. Anyway, I'd better test this specifically.

 

[jwallstone]

I just tested it, and now I understand part of my confusion. I forgot that land units heal outside your borders, naval units don't. That's why Survivalism doesn't need the HealOutsideFriendly.

One more note: The tooltip for Supply is just bad. It doesn't even mention the +1 movement rate it gives. Maybe something to fix in your Unofficial Patch.

In this case, we could either leave Survivalism as is, where it basically requires Supply to be effective, rework the two so they work better together, or in my opinion, just remove the Supply promotion from the submarine class and add HealOutsideFriendly to Survivalism. It makes more sense gameplay wise too - you can't really have a supply chain supporting submarines that are supposed to be covert!

EDIT: Removed the Supply promotion from the submarine combat class, and added HealOutsideFriendly to Survivalism 1. This should not change the effect on scouts at all, since they already heal outside friendly territory. Attached to this post.

EDIT: I had a bug in the xml file. It's now corrected.

 

[Perkus]

@Koxpa - For private messaging, check under "MyAccount->Edit Options" if you have it enabled.

@jwallstone - Supply also gives +1 Movement??? Wow, just played a naval heavy game and never noticed. My ships were crazy fast anyway, I guess. Please fix the tooltip, Thal.

On the catapult question, balance aside, I think you should need Iron Working to use iron, simply because that's what the tech is all about!

 

[Seek]

While on the subject of navies: What about changing the naval ZOC to two hexes? The amount of ships needed to escort one civilian safely (much less a full naval invasion!) seems excessive and during combat the huge movement speeds allow for too easy of an escape for wounded units (especially in the later eras). I'm sure that the latter is part of the reason ships can't heal outside of friendly territory, but.. I think blockades could become more common as well.

 

[gruven]

About Iron issue .
If it was just for reveal to be equal for horses so no problem, then it is just normal )

@ Thalassicus
There is no such an option , mb i need to get some forum group or membership ?

Spoiler :

I think you need to have at least 5 posts to be able to send PM's.

 

[Thalassicus]

@Koxpa
Alternatively to what gruven said, I think there might be a 30-day waiting period between when you register on Civfanatics and when you can start sending private messages (presumably to prevent automated spam accounts).

@jwallstone
Wow, Supply gives +1 movement?! <goes to check> Gosh you're right! Yes, that's definitely a tooltip change I'll make in the unofficial patch. Thanks for the great find, that makes beelining to that promotion even more valuable.

@Koxpa & Perkus
Alright, I'll leave Iron Working as a requirement for Catapults. I'll add that to the Catapult tooltip so it's clear.

@Seek
99% sure that would require c++ access, but I'll still take a look around to see if it's possible.

 

[Perkus]

Koxpa was able to send me a PM afterwards, I think his user options were wrong.

From what I can see, even the size of the Zone of Control is hard-coded, never mind trying to give certain units a different radius.

 

[Gaster]

Thalassicus I've really enjoyed using your balance mods, and I have an idea to give paratroopers a purpose.

I think giving paratroopers the scout class promotions instead of the melee class promotions will allow them to play a forward observer/clean-up-weak-units role as opposed to being just another field unit that can't fight as well as mech infantry and tanks. The changes I suggest are:

-Scouts go obsolete with Radar and can be upgraded to Paratroopers
-Paratroopers gain the Ignores terrain cost promotion at creation
-Paratroopers lose access to Drill/Shock and other melee promotions but gain access to Scouting I-III, Suvivalism I-III, and whatever else scouts get

 

[Thalassicus]

That's a really good idea Gaster.

To compensate for the faster movement of the modern era, Paratroopers could get an inherent +1 sight range, too. I've also been thinking about letting Survivalism/Scouting I unlock the Medic promotion (down from Survivalism/Scouting II), so scouts past the first one can have a purpose. With barracks and armory scouts and paratroopers could start with Medic, then an additional +1 sight range with a Military Academy. I think Paratroopers should probably also have an improved range, so they can drop deep into enemy territory to knock out resources, then support the advance as scouts and medics.


On a side note, I've discovered I unfortunately cannot simply add Cover I as a prereq to Siege promotion due to limitations of the xml file (only reads 4 prerequisites). I'll have to create two identical promotions to split up the prereqs... a real annoyance...

 

[clearbeard]

That's a really good idea Gaster.

To compensate for the faster movement of the modern era, Paratroopers could get an inherent +1 sight range, too. I've also been thinking about letting Survivalism/Scouting I unlock the Medic promotion (down from Survivalism/Scouting II), so scouts past the first one can have a purpose. With barracks and armory scouts and paratroopers could start with Medic, then an additional +1 sight range with a Military Academy. I think Paratroopers should probably also have an improved range, so they can drop deep into enemy territory to knock out resources, then support the advance as scouts and medics.


On a side note, I've discovered I unfortunately cannot simply add Cover I as a prereq to Siege promotion due to limitations of the xml file (only reads 4 prerequisites). I'll have to create two identical promotions to split up the prereqs... a real annoyance...

On paratroopers: I like all the ideas, might I suggest 8 as a starting test range for their drops? I modded that into my own games a couple games back, and have liked the result.

On xml limitations: Can't you add a new line to the table at the beginning of the promotions xml, defining PromotionPrereqOr5? Or is this limit of 4 hard coded somewhere else of which my minuscule modding knowledge is unaware?

 

[Tomice]

Thal, I somehow managed to boost walls up to 6-times the vanilla value (30 instead of 5!) while trying to keep CCMAT up to date with your recent balance mods.

I succesfully deleted a file that doubled defenses, bringing walls back to (halfway reasonable) 15 defense in the civ-pedia.

The problem now is: Cities that had the high def value before kept it, despite the change in the civ-pedia. An enemy capital stayed at 53 defense, just like before, making my legions splatter at it's walls!

Is there any way to avoid restarting my game? it was a very enjoyable scenario


EDIT: btw, I cannot find the reason why walls are still 15 str. I deleted every component of CCMAT that modified them AFAIK (Active City Defense, Thal's combat mod)

 

[Thalassicus]

@clearbeard
I could add a new column, but unless the code is internally designed to dynamically handle new things added to the XML (which I doubt, based on experience with other things in the game) the new column won't be read or processed.

@Tomice
Did you try disabling all mods to see if the effect is still there? I've been trying to reproduce this situation but haven't been able to get something where values are "stuck" even when mods are gone...

A simple way to disable everything is move mods to a backup folder, then you know for sure it's not reading anything.

 

[Tomice]

@Tomice
Did you try disabling all mods to see if the effect is still there? I've been trying to reproduce this situation but haven't been able to get something where values are "stuck" even when mods are gone...

A simple way to disable everything is move mods to a backup folder, then you know for sure it's not reading anything.

I'll try to load the game without any mod, saving, then trying with mods! Thx!

Note: only the def values of cities are "stuck", the value of walls in the tooltip changed.



EDIT: I couldn't load the game without Balance-Units v.13, it crashed.

 

[Quiet Man]

New Upgrade Paths
You no longer have to delete experienced units in the modern era.

* Pikemen &#8594; Lancers &#8594; Anti-Tank
* Cavalry &#8594; Tanks

Have enjoyed playing this mod for several games now and have a suggestion. Because Cavalry, especially in the latter stages of it's historical development, was employed more as mounted infantry and tanks were more like mounted artillery, you might consider changing the upgrade for Cavalry to a Mobile/Motorized Infantry class, instead of Tanks. But this would require adding a new unit, with all of the additional work that entails, so it's probably not a practical suggestion.

 

[Thalassicus]

@Tomice
Without disabling any mods... did you try deleting your Civ V cache? I realized that might be why values are "stuck" if you haven't cleared it.

@Quiet Man
That's why in previous Civ games Cavalry typically upgraded to Helicopters, since they served a similar role... move and drop off infantry around the battlefield. Still, in the game mounted units and tanks fill a similar role (fighting armies 'in the field') so it seems a logical upgrade path.

 

[Quiet Man]

@Quiet Man
That's why in previous Civ games Cavalry typically upgraded to Helicopters, since they served a similar role... move and drop off infantry around the battlefield. Still, in the game mounted units and tanks fill a similar role (fighting armies 'in the field') so it seems a logical upgrade path.

And it was much easier to implement using existing units. Thanks for your work.