here's a suggestion for the modern units ranged attack (non-siege of course), make take the range down to 2 (or even 1) and have their ranged attack be at 75% strength. that way they can still ranged attack at no risk of taking damage from a defender, but they won't so so much damage. this makes the player choose between a more powerful attack that risks damaging the unit, or a less powerful attack where the attacker takes no damage.
Art of War mod
- Thread starter Ordian
- Start date
Btw the 20 hp thing and modern warfare all ranged thing are good in theory, but in single player I don't think it'd work out so well. Mainly, the human player would become capable of losing absolutely no units in warfare against the inferior A.I.
Thanks for all the useful info you guys have been sending me. It helps me out in determining where the mod needs improvement.
@Newt111: Ugh, my adventures into copy and paste have failed me again. Good find, and it will definitely be rectified in the coming version
@SolkaTruesilver: A valid concern, and I will look into that when I get more test results on to what level the Aztec are effected.
@MisterBeen: while I have revealed that catapults was a typo earlier in this post, you are correct in assuming that the early boast still had a attack range of 2 and it being a design feature. Also valid points on upping the heal rates of units and the medic promotion. Could also help the ai in bringing healed units back to the front quicker.
@Abremms: Good feedback on the mod thus far. I am seriously looking into changing the aspects of walls on the city and going to do some tweaking. Perhaps dropping the initial health of cities down 25% and upping the protection granted by the walls to compensate for the difference. Also enjoy your feedback on your melee units.
As for your post on the range units, I will consider tweaking the distance of the range after some further testing but not really sure about the advance options for the player to perform a range or melee. The reason behind this is that I was originally going to keep it as such when I first began to build the mod, but the ai always opted to perform range attacks, so basically it would be giving an advantage to the player that the ai would not have.
@Slowpoke: Our mods at this point are pretty similar, yes, but where are mods will be at say version 20 could be very different depending on our goals. Still, not being one to turn down a 'pact of cooperation'(yeah, I went there), I am sure we can definitely help each other along the way.
As for the extra hit points and both the industrial and modern units having range increases, as of right now I am getting some positive feedback on it and will get into game myself and try to test it out. Still too early to make any real sound observations on its effects.
@Lord Shadow: There are many that have such concerns, and if you do not find it to your liking then I do thank you for at least giving it a try. As for the paratrooper, I have been playing around with ideas about making the infantry actually upgrade to them instead of mech infantry as it would keep the city capturing units as such, perhaps helping the ai in that aspect. Then I would assign the mech infantry to a different role, of which is yet to be determined.
@Newt111: Ugh, my adventures into copy and paste have failed me again. Good find, and it will definitely be rectified in the coming version
@SolkaTruesilver: A valid concern, and I will look into that when I get more test results on to what level the Aztec are effected.
@MisterBeen: while I have revealed that catapults was a typo earlier in this post, you are correct in assuming that the early boast still had a attack range of 2 and it being a design feature. Also valid points on upping the heal rates of units and the medic promotion. Could also help the ai in bringing healed units back to the front quicker.
@Abremms: Good feedback on the mod thus far. I am seriously looking into changing the aspects of walls on the city and going to do some tweaking. Perhaps dropping the initial health of cities down 25% and upping the protection granted by the walls to compensate for the difference. Also enjoy your feedback on your melee units.
As for your post on the range units, I will consider tweaking the distance of the range after some further testing but not really sure about the advance options for the player to perform a range or melee. The reason behind this is that I was originally going to keep it as such when I first began to build the mod, but the ai always opted to perform range attacks, so basically it would be giving an advantage to the player that the ai would not have.
@Slowpoke: Our mods at this point are pretty similar, yes, but where are mods will be at say version 20 could be very different depending on our goals. Still, not being one to turn down a 'pact of cooperation'(yeah, I went there), I am sure we can definitely help each other along the way.
As for the extra hit points and both the industrial and modern units having range increases, as of right now I am getting some positive feedback on it and will get into game myself and try to test it out. Still too early to make any real sound observations on its effects.
@Lord Shadow: There are many that have such concerns, and if you do not find it to your liking then I do thank you for at least giving it a try. As for the paratrooper, I have been playing around with ideas about making the infantry actually upgrade to them instead of mech infantry as it would keep the city capturing units as such, perhaps helping the ai in that aspect. Then I would assign the mech infantry to a different role, of which is yet to be determined.
MisterBenn
Warlord
- Joined
- Jan 29, 2006
- Messages
- 126
Currently the heal rates are to recover 3/2/1 HP/t when in a city/friendly territory/elsewhere, and an additional 1 HP/t when within a hex of a medic. I am convinced a good start point would be to double all these values. Units lose 5-10 HP in a battle often and quite often 10-15, so healing will still be potentially longer than before, particularly for attacking armies where they will be recovering 2HP/t, or 4 if you have a medic nearby. This will still retain the "attrition" aspect that Art of War has now, with many units not at full strength and rotation and reinforcement being required.
I have a game running with Art of War combined with Cyrinno's Building Balance, and it's clear that Art of War combined with mods that boost city defenses can quickly get out of balance. It was taking so long to capture cities due to all the hitpoints combined with the Art of War changes. You might consider including city defence building settings to complement your mod!
I have a game running with Art of War combined with Cyrinno's Building Balance, and it's clear that Art of War combined with mods that boost city defenses can quickly get out of balance. It was taking so long to capture cities due to all the hitpoints combined with the Art of War changes. You might consider including city defence building settings to complement your mod!
Yes that's true, eventually we'll probably start disagreeing a lot. What I have in mind now is perhaps we should figure out what we are going to accidently duplicate, perhaps hold off working on those portions, and release those parts as mod components. E.g. Next I'm going to be working mostly on the A.I. and see if I can get it to make more units during a war, have more tactical sense, etc. As well I'll be trying to make gold more war-oriented by buffing/nerfing it's effects elsewhere, and finding a good formula for maintenance.
Obviously if something is vital to our mod and it's likely to be duplicated by the other, we'd work on it ourselves anyways. But the shared long term goals we can perhaps divide.
@ MisterBenn: I do plan on dubbling the healing rates on the next release and working on tweaking the defenses.
@Slowpoke: I am even playing around with the idea of piecing out the different aspects of the mod into mini-mods along with the complete version. That way, when people want to mix my mod with another, say one that they like the defenses of the cities more, they can easily exclude that portion of my mod and get the result they want. Might even see about making it an option in game.
@Slowpoke: I am even playing around with the idea of piecing out the different aspects of the mod into mini-mods along with the complete version. That way, when people want to mix my mod with another, say one that they like the defenses of the cities more, they can easily exclude that portion of my mod and get the result they want. Might even see about making it an option in game.
If you are doing a rebalancing, I think you should make the nuclear weapons a lot cheaper to build. You usually get lucky if you can build a handful and that makes the threat of MAD rather far fetched. A shame, because that's the "exciting" thing about nuclear weapons.
Lord Shadow
General
I don't think the AI's coded with the understanding of concepts like MAD and deterrence by default. It may not be intimidated by (or even be aware of) the nuclear arsenals of other players. And similarly, it may not hesitate to use its own atomic weapons when it's advantageous to do so, regardless of the potentially catastrophic consequences for its own civilization.
So, ultimately, if you give the AI the chance to build nukes more easily, I'm guessing it'll just promptly use them to blast the world apart. There won't be any Cold War tension at all: just death and destruction by nuclear fire.
You might well be right about that, didn't think of that. The AI of course leaves a lot to be desired and I have never seen the AI even building the Manhattan project, so maybe such a change could simply unbalance the game by giving even more power to the human player.
MisterBenn
Warlord
- Joined
- Jan 29, 2006
- Messages
- 126
I'm still enjoying the mod, but I'm wondering if cities have too many hit points. In my new game it took five turns of constant attacking from 4 units (2 spearmen, 2 horsemen) to take down an unwalled city that had just been settled by the Romans. Rome had only warrior and archer tech but nonetheless it needed a decent siege force protected around this city to gradually take it down. I can see the realism angle for this and I could also see it working in multiplayer but with these rules I can't see that the AI would ever succeed in taking a city.
I'm *fairly* sure I don't have other mods affecting cities, I took out that building balance mod from before that boosted defense buildings and I didn't add in the Active Defense mod. It looks like cities have 50HP, is that what Art of War has set? If so you might consider keeping the HP at 20 but increasing the combat strengths for the different defense buildings available. That way they would repel the first unit or two that attack but then fall more quickly to any kind of sustained assault.
Please keep up the good work I like the mod very much
I'm *fairly* sure I don't have other mods affecting cities, I took out that building balance mod from before that boosted defense buildings and I didn't add in the Active Defense mod. It looks like cities have 50HP, is that what Art of War has set? If so you might consider keeping the HP at 20 but increasing the combat strengths for the different defense buildings available. That way they would repel the first unit or two that attack but then fall more quickly to any kind of sustained assault.
Please keep up the good work I like the mod very much
( Tchey )
Chieftain
Sorry for my english, not my natural language.
I was playing with Active City Defense and Large Scale mods, and i tried this Art of War. Sounds good, but still there is work to do.
Armor and Elephants : make some Unique Unity worsless depending on the map. Maybe, instead of impossible to walk, just make them very slowed, like 1 tile by 1 tile. And no malus with the roads.
- I agree, heal must be +4/+3/+2 in city/friendly/elsewhere territories. With 20 HP it takes ages to heal a unit, and it's just boring.
- Same up to +2 with Medic ability.
- Cities are to strong to fast. Maybe play with the ages if possible, and the differents defensive structures. A small city with no wall shouldn't take so much units and turns to be taken.
- With the new range and new HT, new needs : new units !
-- Shaman +2 HP/turn => doctor (medieval) +3 HP/turn => medic (industrial) +3 HP/turne + range 2 ?
-- Scout +1move + 1sight => recon (medieval) +1 sight => ghost (modern) +invisibility ?
-- Invisible Sniper that deletes the target's defense but does minor damage, can only shoot mounted or infantry ?
-- Anti scout ? With abilitie to see invisible units (ghost and sniper)
I was playing with Active City Defense and Large Scale mods, and i tried this Art of War. Sounds good, but still there is work to do.
Armor and Elephants : make some Unique Unity worsless depending on the map. Maybe, instead of impossible to walk, just make them very slowed, like 1 tile by 1 tile. And no malus with the roads.
- I agree, heal must be +4/+3/+2 in city/friendly/elsewhere territories. With 20 HP it takes ages to heal a unit, and it's just boring.
- Same up to +2 with Medic ability.
- Cities are to strong to fast. Maybe play with the ages if possible, and the differents defensive structures. A small city with no wall shouldn't take so much units and turns to be taken.
- With the new range and new HT, new needs : new units !
-- Shaman +2 HP/turn => doctor (medieval) +3 HP/turn => medic (industrial) +3 HP/turne + range 2 ?
-- Scout +1move + 1sight => recon (medieval) +1 sight => ghost (modern) +invisibility ?
-- Invisible Sniper that deletes the target's defense but does minor damage, can only shoot mounted or infantry ?
-- Anti scout ? With abilitie to see invisible units (ghost and sniper)
SolkaTruesilver
Chieftain
- Joined
- Jun 4, 2010
- Messages
- 88
I have to say, while I don't mind increase a tad the regeneration rate of the units, I think managing your wounded units and cycling them with fresh units should still be a big part of the involved strategy. A decimated regiment doesn't take just a month to heal up.
If it's painful to heal up your units, it will be more careful about engaging them in combat. Also, cavalry will be a lot more tactically important, as it will probably have a grand ol time going after your hospitalised regiments.
Hmm.. might be nice to have the opposite of a "fortified" state. Like, you diminish defense by 50%, but you effectively double the healing rate. Something like "Reforming Unit".
If it's painful to heal up your units, it will be more careful about engaging them in combat. Also, cavalry will be a lot more tactically important, as it will probably have a grand ol time going after your hospitalised regiments.
Hmm.. might be nice to have the opposite of a "fortified" state. Like, you diminish defense by 50%, but you effectively double the healing rate. Something like "Reforming Unit".
I have my own mod with double HP for units and cities so I can't comment on all of the changes here but I can say after a few full games the default heal rates work out pretty good. It's actually pretty interesting, 20 HP vs 10 HP has the odd effect of making the Medic promotion both more useful and less needed at the same time. Since units take longer to kill you can survive longer without healing, but when you do try to heal up it'll be slow without a medic nearby. The 20 HP change does make March substantially better than it was in the vanila game.
If anything, I would suggest making medic more difficult to get (perhaps limit which units can get it) and doubling its bonus but not changing the base healing rates. The biggest problem you'll run into from doubling all of the base healing rates is that you will further reduce the number of units that actually die. Side effects of that include destroying the AI economies because they will build too many units if given the opportunity. It also will change the early game dynamics when dealing with barbs since they won't heal but the AI civ units will you'll end up with far fewer units lost to barbarians. You can safely increase the heal rates in cities since that is naturally limited to one unit per city, increasing the friend heal rate without increasing the neutral/enemy heal rates makes attack very painful, especially when combined with the various social policy and wonder bonus to combat strength in friendly territory.
For cities I tried several different methods, I tried several combination of double & triple HP and double & triple heal rates. I finally settled on double HP and double heal rate (so 40 base HP and 2 HP per turn). Triple HP and default heal rate also worked well but it took cities forever to recover. The biggest difference is that higher base HP has more effect on 'melee' attacks on the city and higher heal rates have more effect on bombarment. What I tried to adjust was the ease at which a city could be bombared down to 1 HP while the ground units were still approaching without making it impossible to take the city once the army was in place and attacking. So no more frigates reducing all the coastal cities to 1 HP while a single Calvary units runs down the coast conquering every city. Well, It's still possible with enough frigates but it's nowhere near as easy as it was in the original game. It's actually quite a bit tougher with air units, the 2 HP per turn is enough to almost completely negate fighters and aircraft based on a carrier will take long enough to heal up that it becomes difficult to rely on them alone to bombard more than one city at a time (an effect that would be lost if heal rates for units were doubled).
Anyway, I thought you might like some more perspective on healing rates, as I said I don't use your mod so I have no idea if it's exactly the same with your other changes. Double HP has an entirely possitive effect on combat but I don't think double heal rates does.
MisterBenn
Warlord
- Joined
- Jan 29, 2006
- Messages
- 126
I was thinking of suggesting the medic promotion be made more effective/essential too, but I concluded that it would give humans another thing to outperform the AI with. I think it perhaps comes down to whether you have multiplayer games or single player games in mind.
If the heal rates remain as slow as they are in this mod at the moment, then I would suggest that combat unit maintenance has to be reduced so that armies are bigger without crippling the finances. Units lose about 3-6 HP in a matched combat, and perhaps 10 or 15 HP when attacked by someone with a combat or strength advantage. If units need to be rotated out and healed up for perhaps 10 turns before rejoining the fight, if the armies only consist of a small number of units (like early armies in this mod as it stands) you will reach the point where very few units will be attacking! War front units will whittle themselves all down to low HPs, and the effect of fresh troops arriving at the front will be very pronounced. If armies are of larger size then rotating and healing most likely will be more feasible. Of course I am rapidly highjacking Ordian's thread with my "thinking aloud", he may well have another philosophy in mind...
I think perhaps for armour and elephants you should consider letting them pass through forest and jungle and instead give them a combat penalty and also a "loses all movement when moving into a forest or jungle" promotion like the Chariot Archer has for all rough terrain.
If the heal rates remain as slow as they are in this mod at the moment, then I would suggest that combat unit maintenance has to be reduced so that armies are bigger without crippling the finances. Units lose about 3-6 HP in a matched combat, and perhaps 10 or 15 HP when attacked by someone with a combat or strength advantage. If units need to be rotated out and healed up for perhaps 10 turns before rejoining the fight, if the armies only consist of a small number of units (like early armies in this mod as it stands) you will reach the point where very few units will be attacking! War front units will whittle themselves all down to low HPs, and the effect of fresh troops arriving at the front will be very pronounced. If armies are of larger size then rotating and healing most likely will be more feasible. Of course I am rapidly highjacking Ordian's thread with my "thinking aloud", he may well have another philosophy in mind...
I think perhaps for armour and elephants you should consider letting them pass through forest and jungle and instead give them a combat penalty and also a "loses all movement when moving into a forest or jungle" promotion like the Chariot Archer has for all rough terrain.
( Tchey )
Chieftain
After two games, i think now it will be better not to raise the healing ability. It's in fact fine like that. However, a special medic unit is a nice add. I use War and Peace mod, there is a medic there, and it's very nice to use it with your mod. I'd like to use Active City Defense, but i don't think it fits well with Art of War. Maybe you can do something here.
i support the "recover" stance, with -100% defense but +3 HP/turn.
i support the "recover" stance, with -100% defense but +3 HP/turn.
Lord Shadow
General
The AI probably won't know how to use that regroup/rally/recover stance to its advantage, so it'd ultimately just benefit the player.
MisterBenn
Warlord
- Joined
- Jan 29, 2006
- Messages
- 126
I guess you could even consider all units naturally healing 1HP per turn (against this 20HP total) and any fortifying and medics add to that at the rate we have now.
@Slowpoke: Was having issues with the uploader as it was giving me a duplicate file error even after I changed the version. Make sure you download the latest version, which is 4. Its so good I decided to skip right past 3. 
As to everyone else, thanks for the information you have given me so far as it has helped in determining many of the things I have included with the latest release. If there are any questions on the current changes then feel free to ask. Please keep up the good work in keeping me working.
As to everyone else, thanks for the information you have given me so far as it has helped in determining many of the things I have included with the latest release. If there are any questions on the current changes then feel free to ask. Please keep up the good work in keeping me working.
Has the AI successfully captured any of your cities using this mod? I have played two games and made up a small test scenario. When I have this mod and no others active the AI will surround my cities and never siege. I can easily just pick off units one by one. Other than that I like the way this changes open field battles.
