Wodan
Deity
Hmm, sounds interesting and workable. I'll be interested in seeing it when you make the changes!
Wodan
Wodan
[BtS MOD] Wolfshanze 1850-1920 Enhancement Mod v2.0
- Thread starter Wolfshanze
- Start date
You wouldn't have to break it down, you can give a bonus against a specific unit type if you wanted to.
I am not saying this is a better approach, but if you still wanted to have everything listed as "Naval unit" that would be an option.
Wolfshanze
CFC Historian
Mamba... I'm fully aware you can give a ship a specific bonus against a specific ship... the problem is, I'd like to say "all Pre-Dreadnought era ships get a bonus against all Age of Sail ships"... even after I break down the categories, I'd have to do entries for at least a half a dozen bonuses for "Age of Sail" ships... galleys, triremes, galleasses, caravels, galleons, frigates, SotL, etc, etc. By doing it the way I am implementing, I only need to say "bonus against Age of Sail" and be done with it... one category bonus covers all those ships. Even if it's a smaller category bonus like Age of Steam (4-ships total), it saves me a lot of work and just looks cleaner in-game.
Speaking of which, here's the categories that will be replacing the default "Naval Units" (formerly represented by a life-ring).
QUIZ TIME!
I'll be adding two new "naval-specific" promotions to the Mod... only for Pre-Dreadnought and more modern vessels (age of sail and age of steam... sorry charlie). They're actually based on already existing promotions in the game, but either with a change of how to get them (for one) or new to ships all-together... functionally, they perform the same as their land-based promotion counterparts... I just thought they deserved being an option for ships. Anybody want to guess based on the icons? One is probably pretty easy to guess. I'll accept the land-based names of these promotions, but they'll get new naval-based names in my mod!
Wodan
Deity
Well one is obviously march, though why you don't just use march is beyond me. 
The other seems like flanking.
Wodan
The other seems like flanking.Wodan
Wolfshanze
CFC Historian
Bingo on the obvious one... yes... a naval version of "March"... why not "March"? Well... because I didn't like the big foot on naval units, plus you don't "March" a whole lot at sea... the effect and requirements are 100% identical to march... but it's now called "Damage Control". It's not like it's going to hurt anything to add a promotion... plus it adds more flavor to the game to have a naval icon with a naval name for naval units. Not sure why ships were left-out on the march promotion to begin-with... maybe they didn't have a good icon for it!Well one is obviously march, though why you don't just use march is beyond me.
Wodan
Anyways, I'm adding it as an option for Pre-Dreadnought and beyond... essentially to represent more modern damage control techniques applied to ships at sea in the "modern era".
Wodan
Deity
Damage Control is an excellent name and entirely appropriate / extremely applicable to warships, even if it duplicates the March gameplay.
Though, it might be just as easy to rename the existing promotion to be "March / Damage Control" as to make a second one that is the same thing, really.
Wodan
Though, it might be just as easy to rename the existing promotion to be "March / Damage Control" as to make a second one that is the same thing, really.
Wodan
Wolfshanze
CFC Historian
Who needs long names that don't apply or icons that look silly for the class (a big foot for a ship?)... besides... "March" and "Damage Control" will never cross paths... one is strictly for land units, the other is strictly for naval units. Everybody gets an applicable name/icon, everybody wins!
I didn't even realize you couldn't get march on ships till my last game... I was like "why isn't it offering me 'march'?"... then I took a look at the game code and went "gee... that ain't right... ships can fix themselves at sea!", so I'm adding it in and giving it a naval-specific twist.
The 2nd promotion I'm adding to the mod is "Gunnery Control"... the naval version of "Blitz", and only applicable to modern turreted warships (Age of Sail and Age of Steam won't get it offered). Believe it or not, Blitz has been available for ships, but you could have fooled me (and most folks I've talked to). To get "Blitz" for ships, you need to be a minimum of level-4 and would have had to bee-line for it, getting nothing other then "Combat" to level-3 before being offered Blitz. That may be fine for land units, but in my experience naval units have a tougher time (on average) gaining promotions because there's not nearly as much combat at sea as their is on land. I've therefore removed "Blitz" from naval units (never once got it myself in many games) and lowered the requirements to get "Gunnery Control" to something more manageable, though the game effect for Gunnery Control is the same as Blitz.
Before anyone balks at making it available for ships and/or earlier, my reasoning is this... Blitz/Gunnery Control will have limited use... in one-on-one engagements with a ship from a similar age (say Dreadnought vs Dreadnought), you're going to take serious damage from ONE fight. If he's got a 2nd Dreadnought (or even any other WWI ship in the area), your own Dreadnought probably won't have enough strength left to engage a 2nd or 3rd target... you'll be too damaged. Simply-put, it's pretty rare to fight a ship of similar size/strength and come out in fighting shape to take-on a 2nd vessel.
My purpose of adding Gunnery Control (for turreted ships only) is essentially for "cleaning house" purposes in case a Battleship gets loose on a convoy of merchant transports or someone is foolish-enough to send a handful of Ironclads against a modern battleship. That's where Gunnery Control will allow a technically advanced Civ or "Wolf in the Hen House" theory to do what should happen. Modern warships with multiple turrets and gunnery control can engage multiple opponents at once... to have two unescorted transports or two ancient triremes approach a modern warship and it not engage more then one ship at a time is frustrating and I thought Blitz was just too difficult to achieve for naval units as they don't have near as many opportunities for combat as land units do... so I'm adding Gunnery Control along with the other changes.
I didn't even realize you couldn't get march on ships till my last game... I was like "why isn't it offering me 'march'?"... then I took a look at the game code and went "gee... that ain't right... ships can fix themselves at sea!", so I'm adding it in and giving it a naval-specific twist.
The 2nd promotion I'm adding to the mod is "Gunnery Control"... the naval version of "Blitz", and only applicable to modern turreted warships (Age of Sail and Age of Steam won't get it offered). Believe it or not, Blitz has been available for ships, but you could have fooled me (and most folks I've talked to). To get "Blitz" for ships, you need to be a minimum of level-4 and would have had to bee-line for it, getting nothing other then "Combat" to level-3 before being offered Blitz. That may be fine for land units, but in my experience naval units have a tougher time (on average) gaining promotions because there's not nearly as much combat at sea as their is on land. I've therefore removed "Blitz" from naval units (never once got it myself in many games) and lowered the requirements to get "Gunnery Control" to something more manageable, though the game effect for Gunnery Control is the same as Blitz.
Before anyone balks at making it available for ships and/or earlier, my reasoning is this... Blitz/Gunnery Control will have limited use... in one-on-one engagements with a ship from a similar age (say Dreadnought vs Dreadnought), you're going to take serious damage from ONE fight. If he's got a 2nd Dreadnought (or even any other WWI ship in the area), your own Dreadnought probably won't have enough strength left to engage a 2nd or 3rd target... you'll be too damaged. Simply-put, it's pretty rare to fight a ship of similar size/strength and come out in fighting shape to take-on a 2nd vessel.
My purpose of adding Gunnery Control (for turreted ships only) is essentially for "cleaning house" purposes in case a Battleship gets loose on a convoy of merchant transports or someone is foolish-enough to send a handful of Ironclads against a modern battleship. That's where Gunnery Control will allow a technically advanced Civ or "Wolf in the Hen House" theory to do what should happen. Modern warships with multiple turrets and gunnery control can engage multiple opponents at once... to have two unescorted transports or two ancient triremes approach a modern warship and it not engage more then one ship at a time is frustrating and I thought Blitz was just too difficult to achieve for naval units as they don't have near as many opportunities for combat as land units do... so I'm adding Gunnery Control along with the other changes.
What about air units?
I'd like to see them go Biplane (have it replace those dumb balloons)
WWII-era Fighter/Bomber
Jet Era Fighter/Bomber
Modern Stealth Bomber/F-22
I would like to see more modern air missions added to the Jet and Modern Era like in Dale's Mod still. Airpower really feels underpowered in Civ, especially vs ships.
I'd like to see them go Biplane (have it replace those dumb balloons)
WWII-era Fighter/Bomber
Jet Era Fighter/Bomber
Modern Stealth Bomber/F-22
I would like to see more modern air missions added to the Jet and Modern Era like in Dale's Mod still. Airpower really feels underpowered in Civ, especially vs ships.
Wolfshanze
CFC Historian
Well, WWI units have been in the Wolfshanze Mod since v2.0, and still are today. That includes WWI Biplanes and bombers, WWII fighters and bombers and modern jet fighters and bombers before moving onto stealth. It's all there, even with a picture in the top of the 1st post in this thread. You'll notice some biplanes in the top-left.
I do spend a lot of time talking about the additions and changes to naval units in this mod, and that is my main focus, but yes... WWI units, including tanks and biplanes were added to the Wolfshanze Mod too!
Thanks Mamba. Means a lot coming from you. I seem to hear a lot of negatives and "don't do that", it's nice to hear a kudos every now and then... I'm still just making this mod for me and share with the public!I like the changes. These will be your first changes to the gameplay, apparently that is inevitable with us modders in the long run
Yeah... I guess what I'm doing with naval classification is technically a gameplay change... but it's fairly minor (to the player anyways) and mostly serves for my ease in assigning bonuses. Same for adding those two naval promotions... something I think is needed and based on Firaxis work, but relatively small in the scope of things. Most of my tinkering has been done to naval units, and land combat is still 90% of this game! Oh well... I just wanted to flesh things out naval-wise compared to all the emphasis this game has on land combat.
Maybe it's how I play that causes me not to run into some of those air units. I tend to play normal speed and without a ton of warmongering- so I might need to be more aggressive.
I guess I view your mod a little differently then you do. I consider it realism-based addons and common-sense fixes militarily to Civ IV- without changing the core gameplay on the non-military side. (Non-military bloat ruins most mods to me) I've agreed with the changes you have made so far as well- especially on Grens and how you've solved CRIII Macemen hoarding.
I guess I view your mod a little differently then you do. I consider it realism-based addons and common-sense fixes militarily to Civ IV- without changing the core gameplay on the non-military side. (Non-military bloat ruins most mods to me) I've agreed with the changes you have made so far as well- especially on Grens and how you've solved CRIII Macemen hoarding.
Wolfshanze
CFC Historian
If you research Electricity and Radio both before you research flight, you'll skip right over the WWI aircraft.
If, however, after you get Physics you proceed immediately to flight without bothering to go as far as Radio, you'll get the WWI biplanes.
Flight = WWI Biplanes
Flight+Radio = WWII Aircraft
Note it is possible to skip WWI aircraft if you research as far as Radio before bothering with flight.
I've considered stretching WWI aircraft a little longer by making WWII aircraft require Flight+Radio+Industrialism, but I haven't decided if that's something I want to do or not yet. I keep waffling on that one... as it is now, WWI and WWII Aircraft still require:
Flight = WWI Biplanes
Flight+Radio = WWII Aircraft
Not sure if I want to change that or not.
I usually beeline to Radio for all the culture wonders from that, Eiffel Tower is huge and usually lands me a city via culture, so I think adding Industrialism would work.
Wolfshanze
CFC Historian
Thanks everyone for the support... I knew changing-up the naval classification was kind of a big step technically, even if in gameplay it's not so huge a deal. Realize it may be a work-in-progress... here's what I know now:
1) It simply must be an improvement over the v2.3 Wolfshanze Mod... There will definately be less damage/loss caused by early tech ships against late tech ships. This much is certain, and I believe it to be a good thing.
2) I'm not 100% sure what the best tweak is in regards to how much of a bonus I should give each age over a previous one. Since I didn't want to go overboard I'll release it with a 20% combat bonus for now. By my calculations that should be about right. If it's not a good number, the system is now in place so it will be dead-simple to tweak later-on. Note I didn't do a flat-20% across the board because subs & destroyers kinda goof with it a little bit, but I looked at every single ship (including subs & destroyers) and did some under-the-hood fudging of bonuses, so in the end, it should play-out mostly like you'd expect it should, and at the very least it should definately be better then v2.3 of the Wolfshanze Mod. For example, Destroyers lost a little ground to Cruisers and Battleships (head-to-head), but are now even more effective against subs then previously... Destroyers still have a combat rating of 30, however, and will still p@wn a Frigate at will! Oh... and of course newer techs get bonuses against older tech ships. I'm confident this system will work well... my calculater is just now cooling-down from the beating it took the past 48 hours crunching numbers.
I think I'm going to extend WWI Biplanes a bit as per my previous thought... they do seem to fly-by too fast as it stands now.
The only down-side? Definately NOT compatible with v2.3 saves! You'll have to start a new game if you want to use the new version that is pending.
1) It simply must be an improvement over the v2.3 Wolfshanze Mod... There will definately be less damage/loss caused by early tech ships against late tech ships. This much is certain, and I believe it to be a good thing.
2) I'm not 100% sure what the best tweak is in regards to how much of a bonus I should give each age over a previous one. Since I didn't want to go overboard I'll release it with a 20% combat bonus for now. By my calculations that should be about right. If it's not a good number, the system is now in place so it will be dead-simple to tweak later-on. Note I didn't do a flat-20% across the board because subs & destroyers kinda goof with it a little bit, but I looked at every single ship (including subs & destroyers) and did some under-the-hood fudging of bonuses, so in the end, it should play-out mostly like you'd expect it should, and at the very least it should definately be better then v2.3 of the Wolfshanze Mod. For example, Destroyers lost a little ground to Cruisers and Battleships (head-to-head), but are now even more effective against subs then previously... Destroyers still have a combat rating of 30, however, and will still p@wn a Frigate at will! Oh... and of course newer techs get bonuses against older tech ships. I'm confident this system will work well... my calculater is just now cooling-down from the beating it took the past 48 hours crunching numbers.
I think I'm going to extend WWI Biplanes a bit as per my previous thought... they do seem to fly-by too fast as it stands now.
The only down-side? Definately NOT compatible with v2.3 saves! You'll have to start a new game if you want to use the new version that is pending.
Xenomorph
King
- Joined
- Oct 7, 2007
- Messages
- 972
I would suggest actually adding some new techs, like Jet Engine, Radar, Stress-skin body (this is the tech that allowed engineers to get rid of the ugly support struts on WWI aircraft. The skin itself supports the internal structure of the aircraft), and hydraulics. You would, of course, have to add extra turns to the end of the game to compensate, but I think this would work nicely.
On another note, why do several civs (like Persia, Russia, America, Vikings) have more than one UU? Isn't there a balance concern with that?
Wolfshanze
CFC Historian
Something I've been slow-leaking... getting all civs an extra UU. IMHO, if you lose to another Civ because they have one extra minor UU, you're not playing hard enough. I have no problem playing against an AI sporting an extra UU... none of these are game-breakers... perhaps the best UU I added would be the Vikings Longboat, but I don't mind sailing to a new world and finding the Vikings were there first... just means I've got free developed cities for the conquering!
I've been putting a lot of thought on this subject... The aerial path has been somewhat troublesome... without adding any techs, it's entirely possible to skip WWI aircraft and move-on to WWII aircraft. I might add one small tech requirement to straighten things out... must think.
Wolfshanze
CFC Historian
Okay... I'm nearing completion of the next new version and have come to these conclusions/solutions...
1) The German Flag Issue:
Okay... I'm going to change the default German flag in the pack, but I won't be deleting any options, and in-fact, I'll be adding options. The Third Reich swastika flag will no longer be the default, but it WILL remain as an option for those that want to use it for Germany. The vanilla-Civ4 Maltese Cross on a white flag will also not be used (but of course can-be if you want). I will have three historic German Flags included with the mod... in chronological order they are the North German Confederation Jack Flag, the Imperial German War Flag and the Third Reich Swastika Flag. By default, the Wolfshanze Mod will use the North German Confederation Jack Flag (below-left), but I will leave simple instructions to switch flags to another if anyone so wishes. Thanks to Mamba, BadRonald & DWolf for the flags.
I've never been fond of the default Maltese Cross flag (too bland and not really historical), and the Third Reich flag upsets a few folks and was only in use for a few years, so I'm settling on the German Confederation Jack flag (thanks Mamba)... and that's enough of that... no more flag complaints!
2) Those "Missing" WWI Aircraft:
Okay... since the inception of Wolfshanze Mod v2.0 WWI aircraft (early fighters and bombers) have been in the game... I've never been 100% happy with the length/duration they exist in the game as they've always had a very short shelf-life. This has been largely due to the fact that unlike my naval adds, there just wasn't as much playing room to insert another era of aircraft while sticking to the default techs... and just recently I'm hearing of folks asking for WWI aircraft in the mod... meaning that the loop-hole of skipping WWI Aircraft and going straight to WWII aircraft really needs to be closed!
Well... I'm doing something I swore I'd never do... I'm going to add a tech to the game in my mod. ONE TECH... no more. I'm adding "Air Supremacy" as a tech... it will be squarely inbetween Flight and Advanced Flight, and should allow a good progression of flight technology from Biplanes to WWII aircraft to Jet Aircraft with each getting a good shelf-life and no eras being "skippable".
I'm still waiting for Leonard Nimoy to return my calls, but I think he's busy filming a new music video so I may have to do something else for the tech quote voice intro.
I'm pretty happy with the way things are developing. Combined with the previously discussed naval classification system, this should definately be the best version of the series... of course I'm kinda biased.
1) The German Flag Issue:
Okay... I'm going to change the default German flag in the pack, but I won't be deleting any options, and in-fact, I'll be adding options. The Third Reich swastika flag will no longer be the default, but it WILL remain as an option for those that want to use it for Germany. The vanilla-Civ4 Maltese Cross on a white flag will also not be used (but of course can-be if you want). I will have three historic German Flags included with the mod... in chronological order they are the North German Confederation Jack Flag, the Imperial German War Flag and the Third Reich Swastika Flag. By default, the Wolfshanze Mod will use the North German Confederation Jack Flag (below-left), but I will leave simple instructions to switch flags to another if anyone so wishes. Thanks to Mamba, BadRonald & DWolf for the flags.
I've never been fond of the default Maltese Cross flag (too bland and not really historical), and the Third Reich flag upsets a few folks and was only in use for a few years, so I'm settling on the German Confederation Jack flag (thanks Mamba)... and that's enough of that... no more flag complaints!
2) Those "Missing" WWI Aircraft:
Okay... since the inception of Wolfshanze Mod v2.0 WWI aircraft (early fighters and bombers) have been in the game... I've never been 100% happy with the length/duration they exist in the game as they've always had a very short shelf-life. This has been largely due to the fact that unlike my naval adds, there just wasn't as much playing room to insert another era of aircraft while sticking to the default techs... and just recently I'm hearing of folks asking for WWI aircraft in the mod... meaning that the loop-hole of skipping WWI Aircraft and going straight to WWII aircraft really needs to be closed!
Well... I'm doing something I swore I'd never do... I'm going to add a tech to the game in my mod. ONE TECH... no more. I'm adding "Air Supremacy" as a tech... it will be squarely inbetween Flight and Advanced Flight, and should allow a good progression of flight technology from Biplanes to WWII aircraft to Jet Aircraft with each getting a good shelf-life and no eras being "skippable".
I'm still waiting for Leonard Nimoy to return my calls, but I think he's busy filming a new music video so I may have to do something else for the tech quote voice intro.
I'm pretty happy with the way things are developing. Combined with the previously discussed naval classification system, this should definately be the best version of the series... of course I'm kinda biased.
Wodan
Deity
Sounds awesome.
By the way I'm still plugging away with my first game of your mod. Nothing yet... it's still early. I'd forgotten how sheer dang long the early game is with Marathon. Marathon really should have compressed the early game and lenthened out only the middle and late game.
Wodan
By the way I'm still plugging away with my first game of your mod. Nothing yet... it's still early. I'd forgotten how sheer dang long the early game is with Marathon.
Marathon really should have compressed the early game and lenthened out only the middle and late game.Wodan
