C2C Combat Mod Introduction - Step IV (Stamina, Surround, and Stampede))

[Koshling]

Hm... not a bad idea. There are drastically different effects for each type, however, and relatively few Elemental Damage types that would ever be defined. I wouldn't think we'd have more than 6 such types ever and each one would have a very different effect on units which would mean each one would have unique associated tags as it is.

For example, Cold Damage (if the unit is not immune to the effect) reduces Dodge and Precision by the same amount as the damage until its healed, the added effect resisted by Endurance (this part would be rather generic).

But Heat Damage would instead Fatigue and Tires at a ratio of 5/1.

Then Electricity Damage would probably have a stunning effect for a number of combat rounds (really would only be applied in combat) at a ratio of 15/1 or something like that (will need to balance it out properly) and/or would completely ignore armor.

Radiation Damage would probably just add to a Radiation Property (something I've been considering for a while) that would naturally bring its own Auto Assigned negative promos at higher levels to represent that poisoning. (so would not be developed any time too soon either...)

How would this kind of vast diversity of effect benefit from such a generic approach?

It allows them to be modded, so if you wanted a new damage type (poison say) you could define what combat properties of a unit it interacted with.

However, this strikes me as very similar to afflictions - why not have a damage type simply inflict an affliction promotion of the recipient, which is already generic and can do whatever you want based on what promotions can do. So you define a new DamageTypes and the XML for those defines the afflictions that different amounts of that damage type inflict.

 

[Thunderbrd]

Neat discussion. I think you just gave me an idea. It couldn't work exactly like an affliction I think because afflictions aren't really measured along a smooth gradiating scale.

BUT Elemental Damage COULD be made a property and the units could be made to gain negative promos from those properties. Said negative promos would probably be well represented as afflictions provided that they were allowed to not automatically be removed from the unit when the elemental damage property decreases.

But see... that depends a bit on the effect, which would yet more hardcoding against specific property types for more gradiated automatic effects like the way Cold Damage currently works. Though I suppose simple bools to define a property as providing a given effect to a unit would be worthwhile and MAY find other applications. For example: Heals at the rate of normal healing could be a useful tag for a number of properties.

 

[Koshling]

Anyway, I am fairly strongly of the opinion that we should absolutely NOT be piling more onto the combat mod for AT LEAST a couple more releases at this point. We need to stabilize, balance, and build effective AI for what we have first.

You can assume (@modders generally) that I will be prioritizing AI for features we have over new functional enhancements, so the combat mod has probably pushed multimaps back at least one release in my personal timeline as it is.

 

[ls612]

Anyway, I am fairly strongly of the opinion that we should absolutely NOT be piling more onto the combat mod for AT LEAST a couple more releases at this point. We need to stabilize, balance, and build effective AI for what we have first.

You can assume (@modders generally) that I will be prioritizing AI for features we have over new functional enhancements, so the combat mod has probably pushed multimaps back at least one release in my personal timeline as it is.

Yeah, I would prefer not seeing anything new from the combat mod for the next half-year or so. I'm also disappointed that this has pushed multi-maps back another month, that was one of my original concerns about it.

 

[Thunderbrd]

I'm not planning to do anything new from a coding standpoint for a long while. There's a lot to do to get caught up to where we are and I realize the coding side needs a break to work on multi-maps. So much of this IS just discussion for now.

I do plan a few tweaks to some of the things put in with the Combat Mod, and some slight improvements or simply just finishing the design in a few areas still so I'm not entirely finished with coding there, but no NEW features beyond what's already been included.

 

[Nimek]

@thunder

So know you can work on adding HP points to buildings right? I cant wait to see it included to C2C

 

[ls612]

@thunder

So know you can work on adding HP points to buildings right? I cant wait to see it included to C2C

Hopefully not, that would be a horrible idea IMO. This is not AoE, this is civ.

 

[Thunderbrd]

I believe its a very good idea actually. (Walls and such would be destroyable by direct targeting but not on an 'all or nothing' basis. There's also more benefits to the idea but that's the main purpose. Buildings would all have 100 hp, just like units so no XML definitions to be established except perhaps for some kind of 'integrity' level that defaults to 0 but if set would establish some damage resistance similar to Armor, and would all be fully capable of healing (cities would naturally work to recover their buildings if damaged). There may or may not be much need for any UI to track damage on buildings but if so, very minimal.)

But its not something that will be implemented any time too soon. There's far too much to do to polish and develop whats already been done. That idea also indicates a major shift in the way AI would need to seek to utilize bombardment so until I start getting a full view on all unit AI, (I don't wish to burden these guys any more than I already have) I'm going to resist anything that requires AI for quite a while.

@ls... I'm starting to get the feeling you're fighting any ideas I have simply because its me that has them.

 

[Hydromancerx]

Would this mean we would have to give an HP value to EVERY building? Ugh. Sounds like a lot of work.

 

[Nimek]

Would this mean we would have to give an HP value to EVERY building? Ugh. Sounds like a lot of work.

I think that we may do it more easily. Dont add new tag to building just use building hammer cost

building cost = building HP

So the wonders and expensive buildings will be more immune to damage

 

[Thunderbrd]

Would this mean we would have to give an HP value to EVERY building? Ugh. Sounds like a lot of work.

No. HP on units is always maxed out at 100, thus HP is just a % base scale. I would adopt the same approach with buildings so HP never has to be defined. Only more resistant buildings (and perhaps only ones likely to be targeted) would have a need to include an 'Integrity' value to indicate resistance to damage, much like Armor stands for on Units.

And the Integrity of a building would likely be countered by something like a Bombard Puncture tag... I'd like to just use Puncture as it is but I'm not sure it would be appropriate to do so since I figure Puncture would be pretty high for units like catapults! I suppose it could be done by giving a fairly high Integrity values to buildings, perhaps even a fairly decent base Integrity.

So if my Catapults are bombarding a building, they'd do damage to that building, just as they would to a unit (with accuracy checks to see if it actually hits) and the damage would be reduced by a % = to the integrity of the building.

The building would recover naturally (although I could give a 'Repair' tag for other buildings and units to act as a Heal ability to increase the speed of repair on local buildings.) with the assumption that people would be working overtime to try to repair any damaged buildings.

But if the building is lost entirely (0 HP) it would be destroyed and would need to be rebuilt.

Thus catapults and such could remove some of the defensive building modifiers being given to defenders that cannot otherwise be removed.

And buildings would not be put into an all or nothing destroy or survive scenario when targeted by bombardment.

Flammability dynamics COULD be worked into such a system but I'm not planning anything with that at this time.

One thing I had considered was to give buildings a definition tag for their Materials (or perhaps go by prereqs) and give base integrity values based on that (which could then be further modified by their iIntegrity tag) but I'm not sure if this would be a good idea or not, particularly reluctant towards anything that would give any further cause for a full xml review through all buildings.

As an alternative, Nimeks idea (at least for establishing Integrity rather than HP) to base it on cost bears some merit but I look at some of the buildings, like walls, and think there might be some disconnect there - we'd at least still require an Integrity tag to indicate additional integrity on a building.

 

[Hydromancerx]

@Thunderbrd

You mean something like this?

Structural Integrity
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=474806

 

[Thunderbrd]

That's the thread that whole concept was generated from and was what Nimek was referring to.

 

[Nimek]

like walls, and think there might be some disconnect there

To be honest. Now i think that walls (and walls chain buildings) are too cheap. In reality build walls accross the city was always the biggest effort. And with thunder idea i would love too see city walls more powerfull than now.

Like Constantinopol (Roman empire) was captured after gunpowder thanks to big bombards. City had so good walls that any catapult or trebeuchet cant damage it.

 

[WilliamOfOrange]

@Thunderbrd

I had a question. I am sorry if you covered this already but have you thought of "sneak attack" in the D&D sense. Note I am not talking about the whole invisible/camouflaged unit but the Rogue style way of giving more damage per turn.

Likewise there could be other feats/promotions such as Blind Flight that allow for the unit to be able to fight in melee combat without actually seeing your foe. This would be helpful in fighting Thieves and Rogues even when you cannot see them.

Other cool D&D concepts that might be good for C2C are ...

- Deflect Arrows (Basically monk-like skills to defend against Archery units)
- Far Shot (Can increase the ranged bombardment for archers)
- Disarm (You can disarm the weapon of you opponent so they must fight unarmed)
- Point Blank Shot (Archers can fight Melee units better in close combat)
- Precise Shot (not sure)
- Stunning Fist (Unarmed melee units can stun a unit in melee combat)
- Whirlwind Attack (Melee attack can hit multiple units in the tiles sounding it)

Great ideas. I am sure you are aware of the damages dealt in the FfH mods, but this take them to a new level. I love it!

 

[ls612]

So, I'm just going to use this thread to brainstorm proper AI (and player!) usage of the SAD tags in the core mod. There are four modifiers, and each of them has a different impact on playstyles and helps break up the typical SoD.

Unnerve: This one seems like the most situational of the bonuses. Making it have greater strength only for SAD bonuses but not for combat is a really risky move. The promotions for that would probably increment at 75% per promotion on the line, so if you invest in it your unit would be +225% better at surrounding the enemy with this. It sounds to me like this would be a good fit for Heroes and other units with high starting strength, as you are really making a large sacrifice by not getting it actual combat promotions. The AI should take this rarely, and on horsemen primarily.

Enclose: This one screams two things at me. First you need to have a lot of it to get it to work well. Second, it would synergize devastatingly with Unnerve. That would suggest that if you want to have a good cavalry corps in your army, it would make sense to use this only if you are willing to use it a lot (ie, on 10 or more units). It also means that you should only use it on a stack that is big enough to take advantage of the maximum cap. So I'd suggest that the AI use this sparingly, but keep the units that have it together and in an attack stack. Otherwise it should be avoided in favor of other promotions.

Lunge: This seems to me like it could get very OP very fast unless it is limited to 5% increments. It also seems like it could very well be better than Combat for many Cavalry units. So the AI for that is simple, but the gameplay ramifications less so. Limiting the effect should be enough for keeping it balanced in the core, but if things get out of hand there is always this last tag.

Dynamic Defense: First, could we please change the name of this to something better, like Sixth Sense? Dynamic Defense just sounds like a poor name to me. That said, all spearmen and archers should get this, no one else should. If you are getting down to axemen or swordsmen defending against cav you are in trouble. But a Heavy Pikeman with a couple promos of this and anti-cav promos should be able to defend quite well against almost any SAD situation, preventing the previous three bonuses from being too unbalanced.

So I'm specifically wanting to hear Koshling's opinion on the AI for this. Note that these plans are for the core, Thunderbrd may have other ideas for the Combat Mod.

 

[strategyonly]

ETA on any parts of this are? part ?? v20, part ??v30 etc????

 

[ls612]

ETA on any parts of this are? part ?? v20, part ??v30 etc????

Whenever SAD AI gets in (ie probably after V29 is released).

 

[strategyonly]

Whenever SAD AI gets in (ie probably after V29 is released).

OK, i thought i read where Koshling was just thinking of working on SAD, and not actually getting to it yet, i must have read it incorrectly.

 

[ls612]

OK, i thought i read where Koshling was just thinking of working on SAD, and not actually getting to it yet, i must have read it incorrectly.

He said that we wanted to wait on it till after release, because it was part of a much broader project related to AI central control. That was why I was advocating for starting the freeze in the middle of this week, as opposed to the 15th.