[BtS] Dales Combat Mod!

[Shqype]

The more buildings there are to bomb, the less likely it is you will hit population.

 

[Dale]

The city this stack of bomber is attacking is a fully grown city, with a population of about 18-20. It contains just about all the buildings that a CIV could build with WWII technology. That's a lot of buildings, and lots of bombers ought to be able to certainly destroy one or more random buildings during every raid. What I'm saying is that this isn't happening. So back to square one -- how do you increase the odds more buildings will get knocked down, regardless of their category, civilian or otherwise? Right now, if you send lots of bombers against a big city, wave after wave, it's very difficult to actually turn that city into rubble (i.e. knocking down all of its buildings). I just don't think it should be like that.

Okay, let's try it this way. If the city has 25 buildings out of a total possible 50 in that class (civil or production). That means that IF the bomber passes the intercept test that ONE BUILDING WILL BE SELECTED AT RANDOM. IF that building exists in the city it will be destroyed. Hence, there is a 50% chance of hitting a building in that class in that city. IF the building selected is NOT in that city then you get the test for population damage and then exit.

HOWEVER, there are two techs that you can flag that give more chances at hitting a building. So IF the building selected does NOT exist in the city it goes back and tries again, a couple of times.

So your question is not logical for this concept. You saying "how do I hit buildings more frequently". You can't. To hit a building, they have to exist in the city. The more buildings you assign to a building class (civil or production), the higher up the techs that give you more shots at a building (by default computers and lasers) and the more enemy fighters floating around, the the chances of hitting an actual building become very small.

The equation is NOT "did I hit a building, Yes? Then destroy a building", the equation is "does XXXX exist in this city, Yes? Then destroy it".

Based on what the above logic sounds like, the more buildings there are to bomb, the less likely it is you will hit anything. That's completely backward! If there are lots of buildings in a city, it ought to be easier to hit any random building. What I am trying to communicate to you is the fact I am NOT trying to hit a specific building, but rather hit ANY building.

Your coding may not be rocket science, but judging from actual results in the game, I'm sorry to say it doesn't seem to be flying either...

The more buildings in a city, the higher chance of hitting a building. The less buildings in a city, the higher chance of hitting population. It's a simple see-saw.

 

[Dale]

Some of you probably read that last post and though "that's a weird way to do it!"

No, it's not.

Consider a city with a number of buildings in it. Some are production buildings, some are civil buildings and the rest are population houses. All cities with 100 buildings will have different ratios of these buildings. (ie: 10/25/65)

There is a finite number of building types in the world. A granary is a granary where-ever. Thus, if a city has 100 buildings in it, and it does not have one type of building (say granary) then it must have a house there instead. But if a city has every type of building then there must be much less houses (ie: 30/40/30 as the ratio)

It still has 100 buildings. So if you target civil buildings, then any civil building that city doesn't have MUST be a house. Therefore if a certain building does not exist in the city then the bombs might hit a house.

Thus the equation I used.

NOTE: The bigger the city, the LESS chance there is to hit a building because there are MANY MORE HOUSES. Why? Because buildings are finite, houses are INfinite.

 

[jkp1187]

I guess not. But sure the people in Dresden saw it that way. And the decision to nuke bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki (equivalent to the fire bombing of Dresden in terms of causalities) was not popular among other allied countries.

Anyways, my point is only that there a need for some kind of consequences for bombing populations IMO.

Disagree with both of your paragraphs.

@Dale: Your explanation didn't seem weird to me at all. More buildings, less chance to "miss" and hit population. Fewer buildings, greater chance to "miss" and hit population. Makes sense.

 

[Ambreville]

Okay, let's try it this way. If the city has 25 buildings out of a total possible 50 in that class (civil or production). That means that IF the bomber passes the intercept test that ONE BUILDING WILL BE SELECTED AT RANDOM. IF that building exists in the city it will be destroyed. Hence, there is a 50% chance of hitting a building in that class in that city. IF the building selected is NOT in that city then you get the test for population damage and then exit... (etc)

Thanks for the extra explanation (and for taking the time to continue this discussion). It does clarify some of the points you were trying to make earlier.

The problem I'm running into with your logic is that your chances of hitting a building described in the game (granary, university, factory, etc -- as opposed to those in which inhabitants live) take into account buildings "not yet built". If I'm understanding this right, if the target city does not have a "courthouse" and a "courthouse" is selected as a bombing target, then as a result no building specifically described in the game is destroyed, but instead population drops by one... phew. Sorry for the long sentence.

In practice what happens with this is that your big city can fall rather quickly to a population of 1 even though plenty of "game buildings" are still standing -- obviously empty but still functioning nonetheless. That's a problem. I don't care what the math says or the what logic of the coding implies. This doesn't make sense. If you've bombed a city to such a severe degree that its population got reduced 90-95%, the number of "game buildings" still standing there should be next to zero. Look at the way German cities were destroyed in WWII. There is hardly anything left standing there -- and therefore this city cannot provide the infrastructure/services normally described in "game buildings". For this matter it ought to be possible to further reduce the population to "zero", thereby destroying the city entirely.

My question remains quite logical -- its intent just cannot be reflected under your current mechanics.

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EDIT -- For that matter, the ability to destroy a city through bombardment makes sense in that it would solve the absurdity of having a basically deserted, devastated city with civil or production buildings still functioning!

 

[PAF]

Thomas SG , Thanks! I didn't realize I needed to create a folder before running the installer.

 

[Ambreville]

NOTE: The bigger the city, the LESS chance there is to hit a building because there are MANY MORE HOUSES. Why? Because buildings are finite, houses are INfinite.

Again, sorry for belaboring the point, but what you describe doesn't seem to be happening in the game. According to the above, it would be easiest to hit "game buildings" in a city with a population of 1 -- right? Well, there does not seem to be much evidence of this unfortunately. I'll send a big wave of bombers trying to wipe out the rest of the "game buildings" in that forlorn city, and I'm still getting either no result or maybe occasionally another building. I didn't see much difference with original bombing results on that city when it had 18+ population.

--------------------------------------------

EDIT

I checked the list of bombing labels in the buildings xml info. A number of buildings don't have a tag (walls, castle, all types religious buildings, obelisk, intel agency, and nat'l security). Why is that? I can understand not listing others like the palace, corporations, bunker, bomb shelter, or the many wonders). On the other hand, I can blow up a city's "bunker" with a spy unit...

 

[mamba]

If the city has 25 buildings out of a total possible 50 in that class (civil or production). That means that IF the bomber passes the intercept test that ONE BUILDING WILL BE SELECTED AT RANDOM. IF that building exists in the city it will be destroyed. Hence, there is a 50% chance of hitting a building in that class in that city.

NOTE: The bigger the city, the LESS chance there is to hit a building because there are MANY MORE HOUSES. Why? Because buildings are finite, houses are INfinite.

hm, is it just me or do these two descriptions contradict each other ?

If I hit a random building (e.g. granary) and thus destroy it if it exists and destroy a house if it does not, the city size does not matter at all. All that would matter is the number of buildings (e.g. granary, baracks etc.) in the city. The more there are, the more likely I randomly select one which exists and therefore is destroyed.

 

[jkp1187]

Quick question -- if there are no buildings to hit (or if the building is missed) and therefore 'population' is targeted, is there an AUTOMATIC population drop? Or is there a random chance that a population loss will be sustained?

Seems to me that it should be the latter (if it isn't already). Throwing a few conventional bombs at an industrial park on the outskirts of town and missing will not necessarily result in any loss of life. Throwing a few bombs at the drydocks in a night attack that miss, hitting warehouses that are unoccupied b/c it's after business hours will also not result in a significant loss of life. On the other hand, aiming for a chemical weapons plant (or baby milk factory, whatever), missing, and instead hitting an underground bunker where people were hiding from the attack will result in a significant loss of life.

I'd actually put it at a low chance of there being any loss of life. Definitely less than 50%. Maybe 20%. Maybe even 10%. Reason being: we're not talking about a few deaths because you hit a few houses; that's so minimal according to the scale of the game such that it shouldn't count. We're talking about a mass death....a large number of fatalities as a result of entire sections of the city being being trashed ala Dresden. A sort of: we aimed at the docks, but missed and hit those oil tanks, which exploded, sending up the entire downtown area in flames....

 

[Ambreville]

Quick question -- if there are no buildings to hit (or if the building is missed) and therefore 'population' is targeted, is there an AUTOMATIC population drop? Or is there a random chance that a population loss will be sustained?

Seems to me that it should be the latter (if it isn't already). Throwing a few conventional bombs at an industrial park on the outskirts of town and missing will not necessarily result in any loss of life. Throwing a few bombs at the drydocks in a night attack that miss, hitting warehouses that are unoccupied b/c it's after business hours will also not result in a significant loss of life. On the other hand, aiming for a chemical weapons plant (or baby milk factory, whatever), missing, and instead hitting an underground bunker where people were hiding from the attack will result in a significant loss of life.

I'd actually put it at a low chance of there being any loss of life. Definitely less than 50%. Maybe 20%. Reason being: we're not talking about a few deaths because you hit a few houses...a population loss in Civ represents a mass death....a large number of fatalities as a result of entire neighborhoods being trashed ala Dresden.

When you select the building bombing air mission in the game, you'll get one of three results. They appear as notes at the top of the screen, saying either:

1. Building X is destroyed
2. Some of your bombs went astray killing some of the population
3. Your bomber failed to hit any building

Result #1 -- no problem. Mission accomplished.
Result #2 -- the city lost 1 pop
Result #3 -- nothing happens

What Dale describes does not involve % chances. It's much more mechanical.

 

[Thomas SG]

Thomas SG , Thanks! I didn't realize I needed to create a folder before running the installer.

No, you must not do so. But you have to use the right path with installer! You have got to point to ...\Beyond the Sword\Mods\Dales Combat Mod instead of ...\Beyond the Sword\Mods as you would normally do.

Well, that's the reason why I was asking for a better installer some posts ago. But nobody wanted to hear my voice...

 

[Thomas SG]

@ Dale
Damn, it's done. It took some time but now the messages are correct and even improved.

Thanks.

€ Dale, may I ask you something? Why do you invent accuracy but keep the chance to hit and do 0% damage? Yes, it happens some time. In my last test I had to hit the modern armor 17 times to destroy it. 5 times I missed the target and 2 times I hit my target but did 0% damage. Very strange. Why don't you define a minimum damage? If you don't like the idea think of a minimum damage of 1%.

I'll define a minimum in my mod.

Another question. You give a range bombardment for example to artillery? Right? Why is it possible to destroy a target with range bombardment but you can only do damaged up to XY% if you hit your target another way?

Why can you destroy for example the modern armor with missiles from the guided missile cruiser but can't destroy it with a direct attack with a mobile artillery?

We should talk about it again, I think.

 

[Thomas SG]

@Dale and Ambreville

Now there is nothing to do at work I had a look at your discussion and the explaination of how the airmissions work. And I'm very sorry Dale but the chance to hit a building is wrong.

Your idea is good and right for random hits or small nearly homogen cities but wrong for non random hits or bigger and inhomogen cities. Let me explain.

Lets say the city is a circle with a radius of 100. You want to hit the powerplant. Normally the building has a well known position! So it's a non random hit! Lets say position 0/0, doesn't matter. Maybe you don't know the exact position, so you your aim is to bomb a circle with a small radius - maybe 2. Now you send your bombers to the circle around 0/0. Your bombers won't be able to hit exactly 0/0 or the circle of 2 - they will hit a circle with radius of maybe 20. So the bombers will attack a maximum circle of radius 22 if they try to hit the powerplant! But the city has a radius of 100 - so many houses are out of interest!

The chance to hit the target is the same for a city of circle 22 and 100. But the chance of colatteral damage is different for different citysize if the target isn't at 0/0!

I'll try to develop a new suggestion later this evening. But one thing is clear - there should be a new mission "terror bombing".

 

[Dale]

Well if the mission is unsatisfactory to your requirements, you can easily disable it.

1. Change the air bombing setting to 0 (zero) in GlobalDefinesAlt.xml or
2. Do not assign the mission to any bombers so they will not be able to perform it.

The other option of course is to re-program CvUnit::airBomb2(..) and CvUnit::airBomb3(..) and also CvUnit::airBomb(..) so the AI follows your method too.

Dale

PS: Ask the WWII bomber crews how easy it was to target/hit the power plant in enemy cities.

 

[Ambreville]

Well if the mission is unsatisfactory to your requirements, you can easily disable it.

1. Change the air bombing setting to 0 (zero) in GlobalDefinesAlt.xml or
2. Do not assign the mission to any bombers so they will not be able to perform it.

The other option of course is to re-program CvUnit::airBomb2(..) and CvUnit::airBomb3(..) and also CvUnit::airBomb(..) so the AI follows your method too.

Dale

PS: Ask the WWII bomber crews how easy it was to target/hit the power plant in enemy cities.

Now, now... no reason to get all soured up. What you did is pretty cool and we'd rather have it than not. What we're asking is some tweaking so the results make a bit more sense. (Sheesh...)

Aside from the above, what I'm looking for (for my mod) comes outside the scope of what you offered. Would it be possible to allow cities to be destroyed as the result of "extreme bombing". If you could show me how to unlock this, I would be very grateful. Thanks! I can live with the rest.

 

[Dale]

Sorry don't get me wrong. I'm not cheesed off, I'm just saying if you'd like it changed to your methods you should have a go at implementing it.

I won't be revisiting DCM for a few months, so it might pay to try that if you wanted a different solution before I come back to it.

 

[Ambreville]

Sorry don't get me wrong. I'm not cheesed off, I'm just saying if you'd like it changed to your methods you should have a go at implementing it.

Good to hear this, as far as not being "cheesed off". As I said earlier, I don't know how to do the coding part -- which is why I was asking. Otherwise, I would have done this long ago.

 

[glider1]

We as consumers of Dales creative work, should remember that at this stage of DCM, Dale would probably want genuine feedback on concrete aspects of this excellent mod like undeniable problems of which there are few. He would not want feedback of a hair splitting nature at this stage of the project, at least I wouldn't! That would annoy anyone. Much later on, we can revisit the tiny details of this great mod under closer magnification when Dale has available time to do so. He is getting >95% of the detail of this mod correct as we speak, and >99% of the big picture absolutely right He is in the midst of a creative skillful process, give him a break.

A real pity that you have decided to put it on hold Dale.

PS) Here is a tiny detail for you. I love Dales idea of giving archers the ability to hit squares. So simple but so clever.
Cheers

 

[Ninja2]

... I love Dales idea of giving archers the ability to hit squares. So simple but so clever.
Cheers

I just have to disagree with this. There's no reason why archers should be allowed to bombard, when all gunpowder infantry, tanks or mech infantry can't.

 

[von Krysiak]

Well Ninja I was thinking EXACTLY the same thing BUT:
It looks great in the classical/medieval era especially if you play on marathon it rocks because arhers can be finally used for what they were used on the battlefield - to fire them few volleys before all them slugga boyz start bashing each other ;-)
Now I agree that the problem emerges in late era when you send your inantry to kill some backward civilisation and they damage your destroyers/battleships with archer volley lol
Well I guess nothing is perfect