[BtS MOD] Wolfshanze 1850-1920 Enhancement Mod v2.0

[SlimDuece]

Eh, scratch that. Meant to say the WWII in the Pacific mod, not Road to War. Long day....

 

[Wolfshanze]

Eh, scratch that. Meant to say the WWII in the Pacific mod, not Road to War. Long day....

That's Gauis's work... I've contacted him via PM to see what's up... but after a brief glance at his mod, I think it might have more to do with Dale's Combat Mod... dunno... still waiting for a response.

 

[Wolfshanze]

I just heard back on sinking ships with airpower on open sea... it's actually a simple and easy XML change... but with a catch (there's always a catch).

If you toggle an XML file to allow ships to be sunk on open sea (ie: damaging enemy ships to 100% and death), it effects ALL air combat... meaning big bombers dropping bombs on cities could completely kill/eliminate every defending troop in a city, not just damage them.

I'd love to allow planes to sink ships at sea, but I'm not sure the cost on land is worth it. Definately something to put serious thought into.

EDIT
Strike that... there may be another option... discussions ongoing in PM concerning this very issue... might figure something out.

 

[arstal]

I'd say that planes destroying land units is acceptable for modern war, ships for WWII. I'd keep looking for a workaround though. Too bad you can't also adjust it with tech. Another option would be to make destroying a ship outright an air mission for certain aircraft only. Be like air bomb, air strike, ship destroy...

 

[Tlalynet]

You would REALLY need a force of intecepters if air units could kill. As it sits I tend to neglect Jets and count on Battlemarch promo or strike and return tactics to keep my units alive. Planes get shot down a lot right now, and if the opponent has good anti air its often not worth it, especially with radar artilery. Don't get me wrong, I love using planes, but they could use something to offest the high risk of them being killed every mission.

Wodan,
There is so much data in Civ its hard to remember it all all the time. (You can still get 130% withdraw if you GG a sub, but I've never actually done this.

 

[Wolfshanze]

Right now it's looking plane-specific... like maybe I could make only Light Bombers kill 100% (both land and sea), while other bombers remain as-is. Still checking into this though... if that's the case, I might be able to figure some workarounds and/or logical explanations.

If the above statement is the case, perhaps leave all air units as-is... change ONLY Light Bombers, and their replacements, the modern jet fighter (ie: strike fighter) to have 100% sea/ground lethality (precision tactical bombing on a unit-per-unit basis, while the big WWII and modern Jet bombers still excel at large-scale collateral strategic bombing, without the kills).

I'm still not sure my assumption is correct, but my current understanding is something to that effect.

 

[arstal]

In that case, why build strategic bombers or the WWII bomber? Could collateral damage percentages be changed unit by unit?

Could the strategic bombers randomly destroy a building instead of doing damage, and with laser, target buildings?

 

[Wolfshanze]

In that case, why build strategic bombers or the WWII bomber? Could collateral damage percentages be changed unit by unit?

Could the strategic bombers randomly destroy a building instead of doing damage, and with laser, target buildings?

Here's the thing... one must remember light bombers and fighters only target ONE UNIT at a time... they can't damage 5 or 6 or 7 units at a time like heavy bombers can.

Think about catapults... why does anybody use catapults? They can't kill anything... knights kill things... why don't people just use knights instead of catapults all the time... knights KILL! People use catapults for the collateral damage... something light bombers and jet fighters don't do.

Also, remember this... if I understand correctly, if I were to make a change to say light bombers and jet fighters could kill, that doesn't necessarily mean a single strike kills a single unit... I think you may still require multiple strikes by a light bomber or jet fighter to actually score a single kill (I think you still have a max amount of damage that can be inflicted in a single strike). Big bombers are still going to cause a lot more damage per strike... they'll just get to a point where they can't "finish"... but they'd still cause major damage to multiple units.

Remember... I'm only just scratching the surface here... thinking of options... would we really want heavy bombers that could kill every single unit defending a city before a single boot hits the ground? I know that in theory, you could do this with light bombers, but it would take a lot more work from them then it would heavy bombers if both had the ability to kill.

I guess the question you have to ask yourself... how badly do we want bombers that can kill? Remembering that naval and land kills are tied together (we can't choose), do we want to leave things as they are now, or start opening the "kill-all" box? Are we selective (only tactical light bombers can kill, while strategic heavy bombers just cause a lot of destruction), or do we open it up to all air units (every air unit can kill?).

Just thinking things through, not rushing to any conclusions.

 

[arstal]

What I was thinking was you create a "kill boat" strategic mission. That would do damage to a specified ship between x and x%, and could kill.

Success chance would be based on health of remaining ship and type of plane.

Could you also make it where some units could be killed by collateral damage, and some couldn't?

 

[Pendragon65]

The Light Bomber/Strike Fighter seems the best way with Wodans kill ship mission. But not an automatic kill a chance to kill would work with cumulative damage. WW2 Capital ships could absorb multiable hits and still fight think of how many hits the Musashi took before the bugger sunk just don,t mention HMS Prince of Wales & HMS Repulse Cheers Lads.

 

[Pendragon65]

Apologies Arstals Mission. (Err sorry work nights having brain melt).

 

[Wolfshanze]

I haven't tested any theories yet, but I have a good idea how it will go. I'm pretty sure we're NOT talking about "One Strike, One Kill" here guys.

Really... there's NO DIFFERANCE between v2.63 of the Wolfshanze Mod and any change on aircraft lethality I might introduce in the next version.

How many hits/strikes does a light bomber perform on an enemy battleship before it's not allowed to attack anymore due to the "no-lethality" cut-off? If it takes two or three strikes before you're not allowed any more, then it would STILL require two or three strikes to reach a certain point, then the NEXT STRIKE might kill the enemy ship/unit.

I wouldn't change any combat odds or damage results... the ONLY thing I would change would actually be the "can't reduce the ship below 30% strength" or whatever the current setting is. Instead of the artificial cut-off, I'd remove that and allow planes to "finish the job"... but do you get to the cut-off in a single strike? If not, then it will still take multiple strikes to get to that level.

I'll double check sometime this weekend and run some tests.

 

[Ninja2]

I tested some light bombers against destroyers and transports, in separate tiles. They do the same amount of damage in % to both ships if they pass the intercept test (destroyer only, of course) - generally between 8% and 21%, so three succesful attacks cut the ship by 50%. After that, the ship can't be attacked again.

For the record, I would vote against aircraft lethality. The scale of the game doesn't fit, and fleets would be pricey and useless, if air can kill it completely.

 

[arstal]

Enough destroyers would take care of the aircraft...

 

[Xenomorph]

For the record, I would vote against aircraft lethality. The scale of the game doesn't fit, and fleets would be pricey and useless, if air can kill it completely.

Why do you think the battleship is dead?

 

[Wolfshanze]

For the record, I would vote against aircraft lethality. The scale of the game doesn't fit, and fleets would be pricey and useless, if air can kill it completely.

I could have sworn someone mentioned that carriers are useless in their current format.

If aircraft had lethality (at least light bombers and modern strike jets), and you wouldn't want to lose your big expensive battleships to aircraft. Would that, or would that not raise the value of having carriers with CAP fighters flying overhead (and escorting destroyers too).

It would seem to me it would diminish the mighty battleship a bit and raise the value of carriers with both fighters and bombers aboard... wouldn't it?

Is that a bad thing?

Seems this might be a highly debateable subject... for or against... my current thought would be to introduce aircraft lethality to only light bombers and modern jet strike fighters... the heavy bombers do enough damage as-is (like flying invulnerable artillery).

On another subject, I've been spending the day going back-over ship scales... still haven't been 100% happy with ship scales... Age of Sail seems well scaled to itself as does modern ships, but the high-end age of sail ships seem to dwarf the low-end modern ships. I'm going to fix that in the next release... ships will start small and get bigger and bigger and bigger. The transition from Ships of the Line to Ironclads won't look funny like it does now.

 

[von Krysiak]

Although I can see where Ninja is coming from I would have to go with Xenomorph on that one. It definitely makes sense for light bombers and fighters to be able to finish the ships - it will increase the power of carriers to their real position. A lone battleships even though a very hammer-expensive ships shouls be voulenable to BOTH planes and submarines, same goes for earlier ships/transports. That would make destroyers/carriers a required addition to your fleet instead of spamming battleships/cruisers for pure firepower as it stands now.

Also another thing that I am not sure if was mentioned but shouldn't the planes be able to spot submarines? I think that all (not only carrier based ones) should be able to act as ASW and be used to patrol the coastal areas - radar equipped ASW planes were the reason Germans lost the initiative in the Atlantic and in the effect lost the war in the seas...

 

[Wolfshanze]

Also another thing that I am not sure if was mentioned but shouldn't the planes be able to spot submarines? I think that all (not only carrier based ones) should be able to act as ASW and be used to patrol the coastal areas - radar equipped ASW planes were the reason Germans lost the initiative in the Atlantic and in the effect lost the war in the seas...

While it may be true, I'm not sure it's a good fit for gameplay in Civ4... aircraft can spot a HUGE area of ocean, and considering battleships and all kinds of ships are effective against subs, easily spotted subs would be dead-meat in Civ4. I am just now getting subs back to some respectability... giving planes sub spotting ability may be somewhat more realistic, but I don't think it's a good gameplay addition.

Now back to my rescaling efforts... phew... I have too many ships, this is hard rescaling all of them all at once!

 

[arstal]

Might be an idea for a new promotion perhaps?

 

[Agent327]

If aircraft had lethality (at least light bombers and modern strike jets), and you wouldn't want to lose your big expensive battleships to aircraft. Would that, or would that not raise the value of having carriers with CAP fighters flying overhead (and escorting destroyers too).

It would seem to me it would diminish the mighty battleship a bit and raise the value of carriers with both fighters and bombers aboard... wouldn't it?

Militarily speaking, the age of the battleship as queen of the seas was ended by the development of airforce. i.e. between Worldwars I and II.