Bad news, you've discovered gunpowder

[Manifold]

It should be called:
Bad news, you've discovered a technology and the production costs of your districts has increased

So I try to prevent the discovery of a tech as long as I not need the benefits of the tech. I am doing this by changing the technology before the discovery. This way I can also wait until I get the eureka of the tech

I guess this effective method is absolutely absurd and a big mistake in design.
Otherwise I am sure it will be fixed with the second expansion and the introduction of the government district (town hall, court building...)

 

[DavDarkelf]

Your talking about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Isandlwana. The Zulu's there massively outnumbered the British forces by 10-1 and were armed with some Muskets and Rifles.
Then consider https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Rorke's_Drift, probably one of the most well known battles in British History, mainly due to the very historically accurate film.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Your talking about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Isandlwana. The Zulu's there massively outnumbered the British forces by 10-1 and were armed with some Muskets and Rifles.

Of course: but the very few muskets/rifles in the Zulu force were utterly insignificant to the battle: it was won by charging into and around the British force and slaughtering them in melee. I could also have mentioned Adowa about 20 years later, when an Ethiopian force largely armed with spears chopped up an Italian Expeditionary Force armed with the latest gunpowder gear. The legacy of that battle persisted until the 1950s, when some Eithiopian troops in the United Nations forces in Korea wore a Combat Infantry-type Badge that showed a spear - indicating that they had defended their country armed with just that weapon - not, to be accurate, at Adowa, but later in the 1930s against Mussolini's Italians ...

Then consider https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Rorke's_Drift, probably one of the most well known battles in British History, mainly due to the very historically accurate film.[/QUOTE]

Historically accurate in comparison with Hollywood's usual dreck, I suppose. They at least got the general course of the battle right, even if they missed the point that the company commander at Rorke's Drift was about 15 years older than he was portrayed and deaf as a post! A better reason than the movie for remembering the battle is that 11 Victoria Crosses were awarded for that one fight, a record in British military history not matched by any other unit.

 

[Jonathan]

There is a simple solution, although very difficult to implement.

• Make the cost of upgrading equal to the cost of the new Unit.
• Move the redundancy of a unit type to be one higher than now. For example allow you to build Slingers and Archers but as soon as you unlock Machinery stop allowing you to build Slingers

This would require rewriting all of the units in game and would be completely incompatible with all other Mods that add units.

I think my original suggestion was simpler: that "we shouldn't lose access to technology A until we're actually able to build technology B." So the game would work as it does now, except that, if a new type of unit needs a resource as well as a technology, the older unit doesn't become unavailable until you have both.

Making the upgrade cost equal to the cost of the new unit seems excessive to me.

 

[Draco84]

I think my original suggestion was simpler: that "we shouldn't lose access to technology A until we're actually able to build technology B." So the game would work as it does now, except that, if a new type of unit needs a resource as well as a technology, the older unit doesn't become unavailable until you have both.

the problem with this idea is people will stockpile swordsmen with a builder siting on Nitre. As soon as they are ready for war they will mine the nitre and upgrade their military saving a ton of turns building musketmen. Besides do you only rmove A when you have 1 or two Nitre? And what happens if you lose the city that is supplying it?
I vote for being able to build any unit anytime but give them a -17 combat penalty on melee and ranged. This penalty would also apply if you lost the resouce (like civ 5)

 

[Leyrann]

the problem with this idea is people will stockpile swordsmen with a builder siting on Nitre. As soon as they are ready for war they will mine the nitre and upgrade their military saving a ton of turns building musketmen. Besides do you only rmove A when you have 1 or two Nitre? And what happens if you lose the city that is supplying it?
I vote for being able to build any unit anytime but give them a -17 combat penalty on melee and ranged. This penalty would also apply if you lost the resouce (like civ 5)

That's assuming you have unlimited money. I'll tell you something: That isn't the case.

 

[RoswaalMathers]

It is a little annoying when you have a decent sized empire and you discover Gunpowder only for no niter to be found. You could always just invade a neighbor that has it, but if none of them have it you might have to resort to things like overseas colonies or far away invasions. You best be quick about it to, before another AI with Niter gets gunpowder and starts pumping out Musketmen and Bombards.

 

[Leyrann]

Part of the problem (with gunpowder and niter) is also that there's no way to know it beforehand - if you don't have iron, you can, after researching Bronze Working, not research Iron Working and continue building Warriors. However, the same technology that reveals niter also obsoletes Swordsmen, so there's no choice - it's luck dependant. (that said, if you just make sure to control a third of the world by the time you discover gunpowder, it gets a little bit easier)

 

[Jonathan]

the problem with this idea is people will stockpile swordsmen with a builder siting on Nitre. As soon as they are ready for war they will mine the nitre and upgrade their military saving a ton of turns building musketmen. Besides do you only rmove A when you have 1 or two Nitre? And what happens if you lose the city that is supplying it?

Why is this a problem? Building swordsmen with the intention of upgrading them to musketmen is a problem only if the upgrade costs are set too low. If the upgrade costs are set at a reasonable level, I don't see it as a problem.

I don't really care very much whether one or two nitre is the tipping point. That's a detail. What happens if you gain nitre and then lose it is also a detail. I don't think it's going to happen often in the single-player game, because the programmed opponents are so bad at capturing cities (though even barbarians are quite capable of pillaging nitre if you give them the opportunity). My personal opinion is that you should be able to build swordsmen again if you lose your nitre; but I'm not committed to it.

 

[Eliminator_Sr]

Why is this a problem? Building swordsmen with the intention of upgrading them to musketmen is a problem only if the upgrade costs are set too low. If the upgrade costs are set at a reasonable level, I don't see it as a problem.

I don't really care very much whether one or two nitre is the tipping point. That's a detail. What happens if you gain nitre and then lose it is also a detail. I don't think it's going to happen often in the single-player game, because the programmed opponents are so bad at capturing cities (though even barbarians are quite capable of pillaging nitre if you give them the opportunity). My personal opinion is that you should be able to build swordsmen again if you lose your nitre; but I'm not committed to it.

This is probably somewhat realistic as it is probably not all that difficult to 'upgrade' infantry type troops with better equipment once you know how to produce it. I do think they could make some enhancements to the upgrade system though - it often feels too easy/OP to upgrade military on demand in this game an then steamroll an opponent. I think the cost should be significantly higher for modern troops like tanks and battleships. It takes time to produce those so I think you should at least have to move them to a city with a factory and maybe introduce some type of lag for an upgrade on industrial and later units and maybe the same for melee troops but with an encampment/armory. That would make domination games more interesting IMO.

That being said - I completely agree that older units should be preserved until the time you have access to the resource. Hopefully they will patch that in at some point - seems easy to fix.

 

[Jarms48]

the problem with this idea is people will stockpile swordsmen with a builder siting on Nitre. As soon as they are ready for war they will mine the nitre and upgrade their military saving a ton of turns building musketmen. Besides do you only rmove A when you have 1 or two Nitre? And what happens if you lose the city that is supplying it?
I vote for being able to build any unit anytime but give them a -17 combat penalty on melee and ranged. This penalty would also apply if you lost the resouce (like civ 5)

What's the difference between people doing this with units that don't require resources, and just delaying that specific tech until you can stockpile X unit? Archery/Machinery for example.

 

[VeronicaCardican]

What's the difference between people doing this with units that don't require resources, and just delaying that specific tech until you can stockpile X unit? Archery/Machinery for example.

The difference is that changing your research path to keep producing old units usually carries a bigger downside than just delaying a tile improvement but the general principle is still the same.

There generally shouldn't be any incentive to build outdated units but the way our civilization's economy develops makes it all too tempting.

 

[Leyrann]

The difference is that changing your research path to keep producing old units usually carries a bigger downside than just delaying a tile improvement but the general principle is still the same.

There generally shouldn't be any incentive to build outdated units but the way our civilization's economy develops makes it all too tempting.

Quite a few units are on leaf techs though.

 

[Jarms48]

The difference is that changing your research path to keep producing old units usually carries a bigger downside than just delaying a tile improvement but the general principle is still the same.

There generally shouldn't be any incentive to build outdated units but the way our civilization's economy develops makes it all too tempting.

Just have a higher gold upgrade cost for those units compared to those who only require a tech.

 

[Captain Potato]

I vote for being able to build any unit anytime but give them a -17 combat penalty on melee and ranged. This penalty would also apply if you lost the resouce (like civ 5)

The more I think about it the more I like this kind of mechanic. It works from both a realism and gameplay point of view.

If you take iron, say, then it doesn't simply represent any old source of iron (which is abundant enough to not matter). What it represents is a particularly good quality source that classical and medieval smiths would use to make superior weapons. For instance, Indian wootz steel came from a high quality source. But in the absence of a better source the smiths could still make do with what they had; not all weapons and armour would be of the highest quality. So you can think of it like the iron source increasing the swordsman's strength rather than being a strict requirement.

Say you make the swordsman 25 strength but with the ability +5 strength for each source of iron (max 2). That makes it better (slightly) than a warrior without any iron, but needing two for full strength. Further you can then say any unit trained at an encampment gains a special promotion granting +1 resource (of whichever type) to that unit only. So a swordsman trained at an encampment will be at 30 strength without iron and 35 strength with one or more iron.

This also eliminates the quirk that upgrading units only takes one resource (which downgrades the encampments usefulness somewhat). This way if you upgrade with just one resource the unit still won't be at full strength (though better off than if they had no resources).

 

[Victoria]

Try playing with England... Redcoats are super strong, need no nitre and one appears automagically in every city you take off the original continent. The trouble is domination is too easy anyway, not having nitre just makes it a good challenge.

 

[Jonathan]

Try playing with England... Redcoats are super strong, need no nitre and one appears automagically in every city you take off the original continent. The trouble is domination is too easy anyway, not having nitre just makes it a good challenge.

I limit my games to 220 turns, so redcoats would appear too late in the game to be of any use. Instead, I play as Rome, so I get legions, which are strong and don't need iron. But I really miss them when I discover gunpowder and can't build them any more.

 

[Jonathan]

The more I think about it the more I like this kind of mechanic. It works from both a realism and gameplay point of view.

If you take iron, say, then it doesn't simply represent any old source of iron (which is abundant enough to not matter). What it represents is a particularly good quality source that classical and medieval smiths would use to make superior weapons. For instance, Indian wootz steel came from a high quality source. But in the absence of a better source the smiths could still make do with what they had; not all weapons and armour would be of the highest quality. So you can think of it like the iron source increasing the swordsman's strength rather than being a strict requirement.

Say you make the swordsman 25 strength but with the ability +5 strength for each source of iron (max 2). That makes it better (slightly) than a warrior without any iron, but needing two for full strength. Further you can then say any unit trained at an encampment gains a special promotion granting +1 resource (of whichever type) to that unit only. So a swordsman trained at an encampment will be at 30 strength without iron and 35 strength with one or more iron.

This also eliminates the quirk that upgrading units only takes one resource (which downgrades the encampments usefulness somewhat). This way if you upgrade with just one resource the unit still won't be at full strength (though better off than if they had no resources).

This is an interesting idea, but bear in mind that more advanced units are significantly more expensive to produce. The warrior costs 40, the swordsman costs 90. If your swordsmen are only slightly stronger than the warriors they replace, they don't seem worth the cost. Perhaps the cost of production should be adjusted in the same way that the strength is adjusted. Lower-quality weapons should be cheaper to make…