Battle-created Armies?

[The Last Conformist]

Among the suggestions in my thread about the brokenness of C3C Armies was to reduce their capacity to one but give them a HP bonus, thus circumventing the AI army construction bug.

The problem that remains is, of course, that the AI still won't actually build armies out of its MGLs. So I was thinking, why don't set the army as the battle-created unit straight off? It's got a defense of zero, so it shouldn't cause any problems*. Has anyone tried this?

* Battle created units with D>0 can cause a bug were you've got a unit inside an enemy city without capturing it.

 

[Zeekater]

It works, I've tried

 

[The Last Conformist]

Thanks!

 

[Pfeffersack]

I discovered this a few months ago and was happy first...but the main problem with it is...you will never see more than one army at the same time; after getting your first army, no more will generated, until you disband it or it gets killed in combat.This "highlander-rule" seems to apply to every battle-created unit...

 

[Blackbird_SR-71]

are you serious. i've had more than one leader at the same time.

 

[Tomoyo]

Only if the military one came first.

 

[punkbass2000]

Yeah, you've never had more than one MGL at a time. You can, however, have as many SGLs as there are techs.

 

[Theoden]

I've actually thought about the exact same idea a while ago but there are some mayor issues which is why I didn't suggest it:

-armies cannot rush small wonders like leaders
-number of armies limited to one becasue it is battle created

and a minor issue:
-when the army is directly created you don't need to plan to get back to a city but can use it right away

Theoden

 

[The Last Conformist]

I've actually thought about the exact same idea a while ago but there are some mayor issues which is why I didn't suggest it:

-armies cannot rush small wonders like leaders

I don't, technically speaking, care about that.

-number of armies limited to one becasue it is battle created

That's a biggie.

and a minor issue:
-when the army is directly created you don't need to plan to get back to a city but can use it right away

This probably helps the AI more than the human, not? Not that I can recall the last time I failed to bring a MGL to a city safely (I get most when storming cities).

If one were to make the battle-created unit upgradeable to an Army, would the AI handle that?

 

[Pfeffersack]

(...) If one were to make the battle-created unit upgradeable to an Army, would the AI handle that?

I have tested this idea in a short experiment.Rise of Rome Conquest.Gave Rome 25 elite Legions I and 25 Carthage warriors in the adjacent tile.Modified biq.: battle created unit is the scout, which upgrades to army.To make sure the upgrade costs isn't to high I have raised shield cost for the scout to 380 shields.Placed HE in Rome to get leaders faster...

Results:
- Scouts get created out of battles as intended
- you can upgrade them, but only in cities which have a GW/SW in place, which allows army production without leader ! (I run the first round and it doesn't work, so I tested what I know from the RaR mod...modded HE to enable army building...and upgrading works )
- you can craete a second "scout", after you upgrade the first to army

So it works...however, I'm not sure how the AI handles it:
a) Will it recognize the sense of upgrading a "leader" unit? A possible work around could be making a "dummy" artillery-unit (advantage: it doesn't need defense) which is battle created.
b) The greatest problem will be the restriction to wonder cities...we had to deal with this in RAR...the AI does upgrade armies, but it is rather rare, because the unit has to be in the right city.Possible workaround: create a lot of (manual) army producer SWs...
c) The general lack of cash for the AI, as a result of the banker phenomen.Workaround: make shield difference between battle-created unit and army very low.

Further testing on this would be definitly worth, I guess I will mod my next game, but of course the AI side here is harder to test...you have to wait until you see an AI leader...nearly impossible without DEBUG-mode.

 

[Pfeffersack]

I have switched sides to see what the AI does with this modded leaders.I haven't seen any upgrade to an army, but that doesn't definitly mean it is impossible, my test wasn't complete and long enough.It seems to depend on the strategy flag you give them, what they do with the given unit:

- Leader: The AI seems to disband them.Perhaps this can be prevented by disabling the "disband" command, but even if this works, then rushing seems to be the first priority.
- Artillery: The unit doesn't seem to move for some reason.
- Explore: Perhaps the best, the AI moves them around and it might be that they will upgrade them sometimes.
- Defense/Offense: problematic due defense 1 or greater needed.Haven't tested it, like all the other land flags not mentioned above.

 

[CIVPhilzilla]

Yeah, you've never had more than one MGL at a time. You can, however, have as many SGLs as there are techs.

Actually you can only have as many SGLs as all the techs minus 2, factoring out the starting two.

 

[The Last Conformist]

- Defense/Offense: problematic due defense 1 or greater needed.Haven't tested it, like all the other land flags not mentioned above.

No need to test - I did fairly extensive testing of it last year; you will get weird bugs with this setup.

 

[punkbass2000]

Actually you can only have as many SGLs as all the techs minus 2, factoring out the starting two.

You don't have to have starting techs.