Birds of War

[Azurian]

I think Subdued Birds become useless after a while and I want to change that.

@ Thunderbrd, Dancing Hoskuld


Rename Tech Falconry to Aviary

New Tech Veterinary
Requires Gardening and Military Training

A veterinary physician, colloquially called a vet, shortened from veterinarian (American English, Australian English) or veterinary surgeon (British English), is a professional who practices veterinary medicine by treating disease, disorder, and injury in animals.

Birds
Bird Promotions
Bird Combat
Trained Flight
Roost
Bird Predator
Bird Bandit
Bird Hunter
Bird Acrobatics
Dive Attack
Bird Bomber
Fire Bomber
City Bomber

Note
Once 1 Bomber Promotion Type is available to a bird species. We can have specific species have specific promotions.

Birds bred for combat.
Bird Combat I
+ 1 Attack Range.
+25% Withdraw Chance.
+33% to Avoid Capture.
Requires Aviary

Bird Combat II
+1 Movement Range.
[includes the + 1 Attack Range.]
+33% Withdraw Chance.
+66% to Avoid Capture.
Requires Veterinary

Bird Combat III
[includes + 1 Attack Range.]
[includes the +1 Movement Range.]
+50% Withdraw Chance.
+100% to Avoid Capture.
Requires Ancient Medicine
----

Domesticated birds are breed and nurtured for increase flight range..
Trained Flight I
+1 Movement Speed for Subdued Pigeon, Subdued Hawk, Subdued Vulture etc.
Requires Aviary
Requires Bird Combat I

Trained Flight II
+1 Movement Speed for Subdued Pigeon, Subdued Hawk, Subdued Vulture etc.
Requires Veterianary
Requires Bird Combat II

Trained Flight III
+1 Movement Speed for Subdued Pigeon, Subdued Hawk, Subdued Vulture etc.
Requires Ancient Medicine
Requires Bird Combat III

----
Bird is trained to hide after an attack and not fly in the direction of its trainer until hidden.
Bird Stealth
Requires Veterianary
Requires Bird Combat II
+Hidden Nationality

----
Bird is trained to rest if injured. A pouch full of food and herbs and later medicine is tied to its legs.
Roost I
Heals 10% a Turn when Stationary
Requires Aviary
Requires Bird Combat I
Roost II
Heals 20% a Turn when Stationary
Requires Veterianary
Requires Bird Combat II

Roost III
Heals 25% a Turn when Stationary
Requires Ancient Medicine
Requires Bird Combat III

----
Bird is trained to be on the lookout for foreign birds.
Bird Predator I
+50% Attack against Subdued Birds.
Requires Trained Flight II
Requires Aviary

Available only to bird of prey. Bird is equipped with bone Spurs on its legs.

Bird Predator II
+100% Attack against Subdued Birds.
Requires Veterinary
Requires Bird Predator I

Available only to bird of prey. Bird is equipped with metal Spurs on its legs.

Bird Predator III
+200% Attack against Subdued Birds.
Requires Bird Predator II
Requires Ancient Medicine

Available only to bird of prey. Bird is equipped with larger metal Spurs on its legs and heavily trained for combat.

---


Bird Bandit I
+25% Capture of Subdued Birds.
Requires Bird Predator I

Bird Bandit II
+50% Capture of Subdued Birds.
Bird Bandit I

Bird Bandit III
+75% Capture of Subdued Birds.
Bird Bandit II

----

Bird Acrobatics I
-25% Capture by Subdued Birds.
Bird Hunter I

Bird Acrobatics II
-50% Capture by Subdued Birds.
Bird Acrobatics I

Bird Acrobatics III
-75% Capture by Subdued Birds.
Bird Acrobatics II

----

Bird Hunter
+10% Attack against Animals.
Requires Bird Predator II

Bird Hunter II
+15% Attack against Wild Animals.
Requires Bird Hunter I

Bird Hunter III
+25% Attack against Wild Animals.
Bird Hunter II

Bird Hunter IV
+35% Attack against Wild Animals.
Bird Hunter III

Bird Hunter V
+45% Attack against Wild Animals.
Bird Hunter IV

----

Dive Attack
+1 Attack Range
Requires Trained Flight III

The Bird gets 3 attack range because of Bird Combat I. Dives from high altitude, slashes its target with metal talons.

----

Fire Bomber I
-1 Movement Range
+200% Attack against Siege Weapons
Requires Dive Attack

Trained to drop a specialized flaming pot on siege weapons. Carrying the pot slows its movement speed.

Fire Bomber II
-1 Movement Range
+300% Attack against Siege Weapons
Fire Bomber I

A bigger pot slows it down even more.

---

City Bomber
-1 Movement Range
+100% City Attack
Requires Dive Attack

Because of the +1Attack Range of Dive Attack it can attack cities safety. Carrying the pot slows it down.

City Bomber II
-1 Movement Range
+200% City Attack
Requires City Bomber I

Carrying a bigger pot slows it down even more

---

Bird is Trained to drop pottery of nasty on civilians.
Bird Bomber I
-1 Movement Range
+200% Strength against Civilians
Requires Aviary
Requires Dive Attack

Trained to Drop a Pottery full of Rocks and Heated Excrement directly on a person from low altitude.Carrying a pot slows it down.

Bird Bomber II
-1 Movement Range
+300% Strength against Civilians
Requires Veterianary
Requires Bird Bomber I

Trained to Drop sealed Pottery full of broken glass, heated excrement, and gastric acid on a person then fly away. Carrying a bigger plot slows it down even more.

---


Bird Trainer
+2 Experience Points to Subdued Birds (New combat Class).
Requires Aviary

Bird Veterinarian
Requires Veterianary
+2 Experience Points to Subdued Birds (New combat Class).

Master Bird Instructor
Requires Ancient Medicine
+2 Experience Points to Subdued Birds (New combat Class).

_Avariary
They are available at Aviary.

Owl Aviary
Can be built by Subdued Owl
Provides Owl Resource.

Pigeon Aviary
Can be built by Pigeon
Provides Pidgeon Resource.
We do this for all the subdued birds.


Veterinary
You can build Subdued Pigeon, Subdued Owl etc..as units in your cities and require Bird Resource..

 

[strategyonly]

I think Subdued Birds become useless after a while and I want to change that.

Rename Tech Falconry to Aviary

Yeah right now Falconry is completely useless, because we moved the tracker away.

 

[Azurian]

Yeah its almost useless. We can make "Birds of War" and Alternative Timeline similar to Beastmaster. Birds can become kinda like airplanes, we can even have them "refuel" at a Bird Trainer Unit or at Forts and Cities.

 

[Hydromancerx]

The name "Falconry" is fine. An there are at least 2 buildings Hawking Hut and Falconer.

It would be nice to have a Falconer type unit that could hold bird units like the Ranger use to do.

If there were trainable bird units, maybe they could be like this ...

Battle
Trained Falcon - Fast, Low HP, Can Attack
Trained Hawk - Mid Speed, Mid HP, Can Attack
Trained Eagle - Slow, High HP, Can Attack
Trained Haast's Eagle - Very Slow, Very High HP, Can Attack

Recon
Trained Pigeon - Fast, Very Low HP, Cannot Attack

Stealthy
Trained Raven -Fast Speed, Low HP, Can Attack, Is Stealthy Like Rogue
Trained Owl - Mid Speed, Mid, HP, Can Attack, Is Stealthy like a Rogue

Other
Trained Macaw - ?

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

Hunting using birds is very old. I wanted to have a Falconry School building at some point and such birds are used today in places like London to keep pigeons under control.

 

[Azurian]

The Fast can have 5 movement speed and the very slow 3.

For Battle have a Hunting and Capture promotions.

For Recon a movement speed and withdraw promotions.

For stealth hidden nationality and higher no capture promotions.

THEY should be good against civilians but weak against other birds.

 

[Hydromancerx]

THEY should be good against civilians but weak against other birds.

Seem to recall in one movie that a bird was trained ton intercept messages from other birds. It would be interesting if some birds were actually trained to battle other birds.

I also know that in real life crows and ravens gang up on bigger birds like hawks and eagles. Be it to get them to go away or to take food from them.

The Raptors (Birds of Prey) should get a bonus vs Rabbits (Lagomorphs), Rodents and Snakes since those are the typical food. Also the Haast's Eagle should get a bonus to "Ratties" since it ate Moas.

 

[Thunderbrd]

In response to this I'm going to update the team on a PM I just delivered Hydro before even seeing this thread. It's interesting we're bringing 'birds' into focus at this juncture!

Hi!

Just wanted to know where things stand with the progress of the combat mod. I noticed that some new promotions are in. Which look cool.

- Hydro

Well, things are coming along. I've been trying to do some debugging work this week but I think we've got a lot of that sorted out now so I can get back on track.

I'm taking a moment to test those new changes. Most of it involves the fleshing out of the Fight or Flight option. I'm a little bound up waiting for Nimek on his xml tool and I MAY just have to spend a few weeks putting in the Sub-Combats by hand if he doesn't get back soon.

Continuing with fleshing out Fight or Flight will be a new tag for Terrain Withdrawal Modifiers. I'll then give Submerging and Treeclimbing animals some applications along those lines.

Then I'll be giving a new bool tag for bFliesToMove which would be for most birds, balloons, helicopters etc... The initial effect will be for Fight or Flight to make it so that if you are a unit on foot you cannot use any pursuit ability to attempt to pin down a unit with bFliesToMove - only another unit that also bFliesToMove will be able to apply pursuit against that unit. However, this tag will only be in effect if BOTH Fight or Flight AND the next option I'll be working on (Size Matters) are on so as to maintain game balance.

To balance this effect it will be necessary for a Size Matters option to be implemented. This option will seek to modify the unit's MaxHP by a percentage based on its size as established by combat classes (which is one of the reasons I'm bound by Nimek at the moment!) That's the main effect planned anyhow... in trying to work this out in planning I discovered there'd need to be a little more to it.

When a unit has its MaxHP modified it WILL impact the unit's Maximum Strength. So if you gave a str 6 unit a -50% MaxHP modifier you'd end up with a unit that actually has a max 3 str but the difference between a unit with 6 str and a -50% Max HP (3) and a Str 3 unit would be that it's only going to take 50HP of dmg to take that -50% Max HP unit down so in this case the Str 3 unit is going to survive the fight longer (currently ALL units have 100HP max.)

So I've decided I'm going to have 2 other combat class categories go into effect on the Size Matters option to help balance that out so that MOST units maintain similar game balance to what we have now even if size has tweaked them up or down considerably.

The first of those CC categories will be Group, an indication of the volume of the individuals that make up the unit:
Group
Solo (1) UNITCOMBAT_GROUP_SOLO
Party (2-6) UNITCOMBAT_GROUP_PARTY
Squad (7-20) UNITCOMBAT_GROUP_SQUAD
Company (21-100) UNITCOMBAT_GROUP_COMPANY
Battalion (101-600) UNITCOMBAT_GROUP_BATTALION
Forces (601-2500) UNITCOMBAT_GROUP_FORCES
Clan (2600-10000) UNITCOMBAT_GROUP_CLAN
Horde (10001-100000) UNITCOMBAT_GROUP_HORDE
Multitudes (100k - 1 million) UNITCOMBAT_GROUP_MULTITUDES
Millions UNITCOMBAT_GROUP_MILLIONS
Billions UNITCOMBAT_GROUP_BILLIONS
Trillions UNITCOMBAT_GROUP_TRILLIONS

These will ALSO modify the MaxHP of the unit. The 'normal' setting that does not carry a modifier would be of course Medium for size and for Group would be Battalion (most standard military forces units).

However, when plotting those out to balance out units I found I'd need yet ANOTHER category to maintain most of our units on the current balance scale they've been given so I'm also implementing the Combat Quality category:
Combat Quality
Pathetic UNITCOMBAT_QUALITY_PATHETIC
Inferior UNITCOMBAT_QUALITY_INFERIOR
Poor UNITCOMBAT_QUALITY_POOR
Mediocre UNITCOMBAT_QUALITY_MEDIOCRE
Standard UNITCOMBAT_QUALITY_STANDARD
Superior UNITCOMBAT_QUALITY_SUPERIOR
Exceptional UNITCOMBAT_QUALITY_EXCEPTIONAL
Elite UNITCOMBAT_QUALITY_ELITE
Epic UNITCOMBAT_QUALITY_EPIC

Which basically is an indication of the combat training/talent/savagery the unit possesses. This also modifies the MaxHP of the unit.

So an Axeman unit would be (%MaxHP modifiers in ()): Medium (0), Battalion(0), Standard(0). But a Phalanx would be: Medium (0), Company (-20%), Superior (+20%) which would thus balance out to an actual 0% Max HP modifier either way... but that's just a beginning.

There then becomes differing meanings to why a unit is the strength its at (and not ALL units, like small birds for example, will be balanced back out to an unmodified state!) So some other effects can be introduced like, for example, a set of Swarm promotions that makes the unit stronger vs less populated units (in the above scenario, the axeman could use such a promo to exploit their greater numbers against the phalanx.) Just explaining enough to scratch the surface really.

The reason that the bFliesToMove tag requires both is because if I make it impossible for a ground-bound unit with pursuit to apply that pursuit against a unit that flies then we're going to have birds flying all over the place as you would never catch them even with a hunter.

So while it mutes PURSUIT against flying units, it doesn't take away the ability for FIRST STRIKE to take down weak units before those units can even attempt to withdraw. So what brings 'birds' back into balance will be the fact that they will have next to nothing (possibly a minimum value) when it comes to MaxHP, meaning one good hit will take them down. So now we can accurately portray Sling and Blowgun hunting methods - one good shot to drop really small units.

From there I'll then move into attempting a more accurate portrayal of First Strike as was discussed some months ago. This involves some defining of the difference between Hand to Hand and Distance combat in combat processing.

THAT will then lead into prepping us for the weapon equipment methods that will be necessary to be in place for the full equipment mods to come into play.


That's the visible path from here... I think right away though I'm going to have to take a timeout to work on a recalc method for units since units never recalculate during asset update recalculations right now and with CCs having modifiers it becomes more important for them to do so.

And I believe it'll be pretty critical to get the AI to recognize a number of unit factors it isn't seeing right now including CC modifiers. So that'll be a project where it will seem I'm not doing much but will be putting in quite a volume of effort.

What I would ask of the team here is to consider the impact my immediate plans here would have in regards to birds (lowered MaxHP basically) when considering this project.

Also, consider that Early Withdrawal only functions on the fight or flight combat mod option so it CAN be added to some promotions without invalidating those promos if the option is off... just means that the Early Withdrawal portion of the promo's effect won't take effect if the option is off.

Regarding the proposed promos against Subdued Birds and such... I'd think it wouldn't make a difference if subdued or not... I'd suggest just a modification against Birds in general. And as H mentioned, Small birds can chase off bigger birds as they have greater maneuverability - I've seen songbirds chase off Ravens with ease.

@Hydro: our speed CCs really are only Fast, Normal (not speed categorized), and Slow. For the sake of sanity please keep all considerations there unless we're talking about overland travel (move pts).


A question for the team: What tag is used to enable the ability that Helicopters and Balloons have to cross water? I'd like to blend it into the bFliesToMove implementation.

 

[Faustmouse]

If Nimek doesn't return "on time", N47 said there are programs that could do what Nimeks Parser would do, IIRC.
Also Mr Azure knows a lot of usefull tools that might ease up this task.
And if nothing else workd and you'd really have to do it by hand, I could step in there (I have time until the 2nd half of December) so you can continue more advanced modding stuff, because that what I've just read sounds to epic to be delayed even more

 

[Pepo]

I think that if combat birds are included,they should work like planes but only do recon and intercepcion.hunters and some recon units should have the ability to carry one bird.birds should have a range of 2-3 .this will allow interesting situacions were yours army uses birds to see the enemy positions .also birds can figth between then in the air to protect your forces from recon.later in game ,with genetic modification,birds become usefull against foot soldiers and ww2 planes (think about birds with steel claws and being oversized)

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

Unfortunately there is only one range for air recon allowed. It will require dll work to change it.

 

[Thunderbrd]

I think that if combat birds are included,they should work like planes but only do recon and intercepcion.hunters and some recon units should have the ability to carry one bird.birds should have a range of 2-3 .this will allow interesting situacions were yours army uses birds to see the enemy positions .also birds can figth between then in the air to protect your forces from recon.later in game ,with genetic modification,birds become usefull against foot soldiers and ww2 planes (think about birds with steel claws and being oversized)

We used to have this... a Hawk air unit that would use the hunter as a carrier unit. However, it was felt this wasn't realistic when it came to revealing unrevealed territory while employed for scouting so it was removed (I did like it though...)

And DH's point below was true as well so perhaps it was in part just a situation of being 'too powerful'.

So if we go back to having something along these lines I think we'd need to:
1) Have an adjustable range of visibility during scouting missions. This wouldn't be too hard I don't think.

2) Enable units to intercept scouting units and find a way to balance that system. I'm thinking it would probably require another set of tags to mirror the normal interception mechanism or perhaps an InterceptVSCombatClassType tag. Going with that tag we'd have to make a AerialScoutingAltitude and InterceptionAltitude set of tags to aid in defining both the height at which a unit performs an aerial scout mission and the height limit at which a unit can intercept a unit performing an aerial scout mission. Archers could intercept a scouting hawk but not a scouting fighter plane.

3) Give a bool for units like hawks and such that keeps them from being able to reveal unrevealed tiles during scouting. What's the point then, you might ask? Well... the problem that caused us to reverse the Hawk was the complaint that the Hawk isn't exactly going to return to his hunter and draw out a map for him or even be able to explain the lay of the land. However, such a scouting mechanism might be a way to guide the hunter to prey, thus units. So perhaps it could be still useful if the Hawk, although unable to reveal unrevealed territory, could scout to determine the creatures in the area. To some extent the same argument still exists but a well trained Hawk could possibly give some indications.

4) I like the idea of these units being handled as Air units. Perhaps an AirUnitCapacitybyCombatClass tag would be in order. Then also put that tag on features and terrains and possibly improvements - then figure out how to add it for hills and peaks (especially peaks!) Either that or handle it on the combat classes themselves and have the unit itself discover whether the tile would allow it to 'roost' based on where it can.

Anyhow... I can see how this all could be a really cool project but to do it right it's going to take some real coding efforts. However, the good news is I don't believe any of it would be too difficult and it would be kinda cool to start deepening some of the Air battle interactions as with the Combat Mod so far I've pretty much focused on ground and some naval almost exclusively.

Unfortunately there is only one range for air recon allowed. It will require dll work to change it.

 

[JamesBC]

I personally think the Bird Bomber Promotions mentioned in the first post are a bit silly in historical terms, but would increase the fun factor.

Trained to Drop sealed Pottery full of broken glass, heated excrement, and gastric acid on a person then fly away. Carrying a bigger plot slows it down even more.

It could be possible, there are birds of prey that drop things from mid air, but to train it to drop a pot on a person is a bit exaggerated.

http://beheco.oxfordjournals.org/content/10/3/220.full

 

[Azurian]

Subdued Eagles can get Promotions.
I love them. I nurse them back to health then send them on explore missions.

I use them to patrol the lands around my cities because they have 3

When at war, they are GREAT at capturing enemy Gatherers . I send the captured Gatherers to the Wilderness so they can get killed by Wild Animals.

Imagine if I had a Subdued Hasst Eagle with 4 !

I wish you could give them Promotions. The Sabertooth and some Wild Animals kill them in one shot.

Here is a screenshot of the Stats of a Subdued Eagle.

Spoiler :