C2C: Hunters, Healers and Recon Units

[IronClaymore]

I have a question, why is Surgeon Before Medic and Ambulance WWI?

And shouldn't there be a Doctor unit after Apothecary where the Surgeon is now?

Were Doctors from the 17th century called Surgeon's?

Just curious is all.

JosEPh

I think it's due to the way the word has historically been used. My anecdote is from the Master and Commander novel by Patrick O'Brian. In it, the men and officers find out they're going to get Maturin as ship's doctor, and they're really happy, because he's not a mere surgeon, but an honest-to-god physician, who actually knew proper medical stuff (for whatever that was worth in those days, but he did save a guy after he drowned).

See, if I remember correctly, in those days military surgeons had substandard and awful training. They knew how to give basic first aid and saw off limbs, but were pretty terrible. Pulling out bullets, suturing wounds, sure, but actually treating disease? Forget it. Of course there were exceptions, with smart and experienced ones actually knowing more of the medical knowledge of the day, but even that was terrible. Doctors still did blood-letting . If you were really, really, really lucky, the guy operating on you used his rum ration to rinse his hands before he started.

So, the surgeon unit in C2C represents the "surgeons" from those days. They weren't usually doctors. Hell no.

 

[ls612]

I have a question, why is Surgeon Before Medic and Ambulance WWI?

And shouldn't there be a Doctor unit after Apothecary where the Surgeon is now?

Were Doctors from the 17th century called Surgeon's?

Just curious is all.

JosEPh

The Surgeon is the (relatively) poor field doctor of the 18th and early 19th century, while the Medic is like the early Red Cross, and the WWI ambulance is the Red Cross with motors and better medical technology.

 

[Hydromancerx]

@Dancing Hoskuld

I am not sure what topic this should go under but since these units are mostly your I posted in your topic.

If you are going to have the Food Caravan type units match the other caravan type units then you need to chnage ...

Food Supply Train
Req Building: Trading Post (not castle)

Food Fright
Req Building: Shopping Center

Note that those buildings are auto-built now so it should be very easy to get those building requirements.

Also have you thought about Water Units that do the same thing?

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

@Dancing Hoskuld

I am not sure what topic this should go under but since these units are mostly your I posted in your topic.

If you are going to have the Food Caravan type units match the other caravan type units then you need to chnage ...

Food Supply Train
Req Building: Trading Post (not castle)

Food Fright
Req Building: Shopping Center

Note that those buildings are auto-built now so it should be very easy to get those building requirements.

Also have you thought about Water Units that do the same thing?

Given that I am not happy with the current merchant line and that there is no AI for the food merchants I wont be making any changes yet.

The problem I have with the merchant line is that they go obsolete. With an early merchant and the next up merchant I can build two production buildings in a city when I settle it. With the Supply train there is no production building that I can build without wasting . Merchant units are like the Great Engineer in this regard, excess hammers don't carry over.

Hunters

I am looking at making the changes I suggested earlier/elsewhere:-

1) Great General (Great Hunter?) can build three Traditions (as in the Realism Invictus sense)

• Hunting Traditions - gives free Hunting Tradition in all cities
• Sea Hunting Traditions - gives free Sea Hunting Tradition in all coastal cities.
• Hunter Tradition - gives free Master Hunter in all cities

Hunting Tradition - same as now but obsolete with tech between WWI and WWII. (Semi-Automatic Weapons?)

Sea Hunting Tradition - gives wooden ships access to Sea Hunter promotions; obsolete at satellites. Replaces the master Sea Hunter building.

Master Hunter - as now except expires at the same time as Hunting Tradition​

2) Military Standard (+1 exp all land units) and Naval Standard (+1 exp all sea units) to be extended with a set of additional standards all of which can be built in a city

• Military Standard (Bear) - 5% faster production of bear units. Requires Bear Trainer Great Wonder somewhere in your nation and allows building of bear units in this city.
• Military Standard (Cat) - 5% faster production of feline units
• Military Standard (Dog) - 5% faster production of canine units
• and so on

3) Myth buildings have two problems

• people have been complaining that these take away as much science as they give (mostly because they misunderstand the Actual value in the hover display)
• they provide both boost to buildings and boost to science which make it hard to obsolete at the correct time

These will be split and a new "Legend of..." will be created which will auto build the Myth building. I also need to split this for the "Developing Religions" mod.

 

[Dissonance]

Seeing as there's a discussion thread on hunter units, I wanted to throw a thought your guys' way.

In late Prehistoric and Ancient eras, promoted Hunter units are extremely powerful. I find myself relying on the Hunter to soften stacks, and when an enemy hunter comes, it's rare that I can catch them. They are also faster than other units, and benefit a lot from the various speed promotions. The AI gets the occassional highly promoted hunters too, and those are a pain to dislodge.

Is this working as intended? This is in part due to the almost complete access to combat promotions. I know the First Strike will be reworked, but Hunter units are still very powerful.

My suggestion is to remove combat bonus promotions (Shock/Cover/Formation/Combat), and instead provide quality of life promotions to make them more like Spy/Recon units. Make them better at defense, allow them to see invisible units and also allow them to be invisible themselves.

 

[Thunderbrd]

Although those promotion suggestions could be a good idea - perhaps its not such a good thing to have most of the Anti-Combat Class promos for them and I would like to replace the Combat Line on Explorers with something more... Explorer-centric, I strongly feel that the big root of the problem you're talking about is primarily in two parts:

1) Explorer units are flatly set too strong after the Hunter/Scout era. Wardens, at 10, make great city invaders during their era. IMO, they should NOT be strong at all against Combatant units and perhaps even carry a flat penalty for fighting against them. Their purpose is not to go to war except to perhaps help to guide and inform those who go to war - and perhaps eventually assist in feeding armies in the field. Scouting units should not be fighters at all, but should be very good at fleeing from fights that come to them. Currently, they are great quick shield units that can be used to run out and escort the captured. But that they generically can fight so well, even if only on the defensive, for a unit not trained to decimate enemies is, imo, a flaw in our design.

If I were reworking them now, I'd slash both Explorer types strength values where they start getting up over 3 or so to something significantly under the era standard for a melee unit, make hunters awesome still at fighting animal units (thus having some military role potentially) and give scouts withdraw and early withdraw so as to make them tough to kill (so long as the player is utilizing the Defensive Withdraw Bug Option) but incapable of making much of a stand. This would enhance their 'roles'. Hunters would be good to have along in the stack to defend against (and attack where it can get a good shot in) Canines and Felines (among other animal units). And Scouts would be fearlessly sent forward to get eyes across the battlefield.

2)There's very little Anti-Explorer or simply Anti-Scouting or Anti-Hunter promotion effects, making most units incapable of developing the ability to counter these units. I'm thinking, in particular, Criminal and/or Ruffian (Mercs and Guerrillas) units would excel at the Anti-Explorer role. Of course, once the Pursuit ability is widely applied, I'd think Fast Mounted and Canine and Feline units would be good against Scouts while a basic penalty to fighting Combatant units for Hunters would make anything non-animal pretty good at fighting them.

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

In general I agree with the strength reduction on the classic and later era hunters and recon units as long as they have a good chance of withdrawing from slow units. Fast units as you suggest would be the best at countering them.

I disagree with the idea of the bandit line being anti-scout or anti-hunter. In fact I think the scouts and hunters should be their own anti unit, if that is possible.

 

[Thunderbrd]

In general I agree with the strength reduction on the classic and later era hunters and recon units as long as they have a good chance of withdrawing from slow units. Fast units as you suggest would be the best at countering them.

I disagree with the idea of the bandit line being anti-scout or anti-hunter. In fact I think the scouts and hunters should be their own anti unit, if that is possible.

That second point is less concerning to me than the first anyhow.

If nobody else objects then, I'd like to do a review of Scouts and Hunter class units similar to what I've done for Throwing Line units so as to rebalance the whole of those lines. This would make a good core 'surface' project for the next version for me.

By 'surface' project I mean one that would make a visible impact to immediate game play for the mod directly - I'm trying to get a little of the back end and a little of the front end (and some debugging and general team support) done during each release cycle. I feel that without a little work on something that creates such an immediate and obvious impact on game play, its hard to justify that the player should consider the new release worth uploading over maintaining the last one - beyond fixed bugs of course. These are the things that impress a player with the noteworthy evolution of the mod while the things constantly being done in the background to set things up for the future don't carry any immediate impact along those lines. I've often been wrapped up in just the backend and let nothing be done from me on the front end and I'm attempting to slowly change that.

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

I am doing some work on the whole subdued animals stuff so be careful if you are changing anything in there.

 

[Thunderbrd]

I noticed you were adjusting animals a bit... I'd only be reviewing the Hunters and Scouts so if you have some in there I'll check with you before working on that.

On that note: regarding the review you're doing on animals...

Part of the vision I have for Hunters is that they would start with some Pursuit and be able to develop a fairly strong degree of pursuit through promos. Would you please take a look at your animals and give some consideration to adding some withdrawal and early withdrawal to those animals that classically don't stand and fight? For example: Deer would have a very strong withdrawal and a pretty high early withdrawal as they simply don't stand and fight but run at the slightest sign of danger. Even big cats often will withdraw if they are injured - thus would have moderate levels of early withdrawal and decent levels of withdraw ability. This will go far in making hunters all the more specialized in 'hunting' as I add Pursuit values to them. Obviously not all animals withdraw and there's other abilities there to discuss adding, like Repel for Skunks for example.

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

You are thinking modern. Before tools humans were low on the food chain and even birds could drive them off. Turkeys and geese still do. As far as cats were concerned "humans are happy meals that move around" to quote a vampire. It wasn't until the invention of the gun that humans started to become the top of the food chain. Humans just weren't dangerous early on. Even today tackling a pig in the wild is dangerous and if you are confronted with a family of 20-100 it is best to climb a tree and pretend you aren't there.

It would be better if we could come up with some dynamic that reflected this rather than pretend that one set of stats is right for all ages. the only way to do that at the moment is to make units for each era. We have about 150 animal units (and the same number of subdued units) keeping them balanced is not easy as it is.

 

[Thunderbrd]

We COULD have a promotion introduced to unitcombats by era... But its not all about humans... its also about basic animal behavior to which they'd already evolved to face each other in the wild. But in regards to humans, you're right about an evolving outlook by animals towards us. And we could represent that with an era based free promo mechanic. What do you think?

And of course, even today a wild pig isn't likely to have any withdrawal... just not in the animal's nature. So I'm not presuming ALL animals would be the flight over fight type.

 

[Taxman66]

You are thinking modern. Before tools humans were low on the food chain and even birds could drive them off. Turkeys and geese still do. As far as cats were concerned "humans are happy meals that move around" to quote a vampire. It wasn't until the invention of the gun that humans started to become the top of the food chain. Humans just weren't dangerous early on. Even today tackling a pig in the wild is dangerous and if you are confronted with a family of 20-100 it is best to climb a tree and pretend you aren't there.

It would be better if we could come up with some dynamic that reflected this rather than pretend that one set of stats is right for all ages. the only way to do that at the moment is to make units for each era. We have about 150 animal units (and the same number of subdued units) keeping them balanced is not easy as it is.

I beg to differ, it was far far far before the gun when humans became the top of the food chain. It was with the bow when domination of the food chain was completed and started with the atl-atl.

 

[DRJ]

I beg to differ, it was far far far before the gun when humans became the top of the food chain. It was with the bow when domination of the food chain was completed and started with the atl-atl.

I would say it was even before that. It was when someone understood that in certain situations cooperation is more profitable than fear, thus overcoming fear (birds overcome fear when protecting their nests as well for example).
20 strong near-apes, throwing stones and houling at a lion will make it go away and for example leave the carrion and most importantly the bone marrow to the group, for development of even further strategies.

You didn't even need to have a spear or a stone to hunt a mammoth, having some burning sticks and a cliff would do it. It's just how brilliant and strategic the leader is, if he can overcome the fear, he can overcome any obstacle. Religion is often the effort to institutionalize charisma and it's tactical successes.

So let's not forget that the other side, fear is a good thing as well, instinctively helping us to avoid dangerous situations, but in a changing world, the situations have to be weighted differently, before the instincts keep track, so as well as not every fear is always good, not having fear at times when there should be some, might also be very dangerous - well, C2C has the Megalomaniac Trait to represent this^^

 

[MagnusIlluminus]

Humans were, and are, not the only animals that cooperate. Wolves, Hyenas, and various others hunt in packs for much the same reasons. The only thing that differentiates us from other pack hunting animals is tool use (including fire as a tool).

 

[Dissonance]

Humans were, and are, not the only animals that cooperate. Wolves, Hyenas, and various others hunt in packs for much the same reasons. The only thing that differentiates us from other pack hunting animals is tool use (including fire as a tool).

Just to chime in, it's not the tools themselves but rapid decision making and learning. That, and microevolution that affects all aspects of humans. We are extremely good at adapting to novel situations and challenges, and this includes tool use. Other animals have tactics and learning; we just do it way, way, way better.

 

[DRJ]

Just to chime in, it's not the tools themselves but rapid decision making and learning. That, and microevolution that affects all aspects of humans. We are extremely good at adapting to novel situations and challenges, and this includes tool use. Other animals have tactics and learning; we just do it way, way, way better.

It's true:

(brain)size matters!

and:

it's the (protein)economy, stupid!


So we could say, the best strategies leading to the collection of a lot of proteins and therefore brain-growth helped the most to learn and tehrefore adept quicker, refusing to rely simply on instinct.*

A good balanced body with fingers (used as tools) for ejecting the bone marrow was very important, to start with.
Bigger carnivores on the other hand didn't develop fingers because they had the urge to run on their extremities instead of holding them onto the limbs like our ancestors did in the forests...well, no super-diet "bone marrow" for them... more power to us


*I once made a poem about this, roughly translated to:

Spoiler :

Of Sleep

Once, when we learned to dream,
Envision our future,
We then began
-Quite slowly, at first-
To comprehend
Human-being
As temporally

Bleeding victors, we opened our eyes
And went
-Initially, stuttering still, sonourously, though, quite soon-
To butcher off
The creatures of the night.

Planned, agitated, shot and scraped
Stirred up fire in a trance

And then
-We never really forgot when-
Arrested the cradle of every sweven:

Casted our fear in gold.

But as the day died off, thereafter,
Into a grey-in-grey, I chanted here:

Find out about yourself!
There is no finery,
The gold begets the smoke,
blows off, discards, unsettles
scorches all around the earth with greed.

Find out, o humankind -howbeit blinded- peer, pursue:

Missing is the meadows scent, are winter pelts
Missing is the early red, the lately blue
-
Missing is -as clear as day- the morning dew.



and here for people who can understand it the german original with carefully set rhymes

Spoiler :

Des Schlafes


Als wir träumen lernten,
die Zukunft sehen,
begannen wir,
-ganz langsam, anfangs-
das Menschsein
zeitlich
zu versteh'n;


öffneten als blutende Sieger die Augen
und gingen
-erst stotternd noch, doch bald schon sehr sonor-
die Wesen der Nacht
beschlachten.



Planten, hetzten, schossen, schürften,
schürten Feuer wie im Rausch

und dann
-wir vergassen nie genau wann-
nahmen wir die Wiege aller Träume gefangen.

Gossen uns're Angst in Gold.


Doch als sodann der Tag erstarb,
zu einem Grau in Grau, da sang ich:

Erkenn' dich doch!
Da kommt kein Glanz,
das Gold zeugt Rauch,
fliegt auf, verwirft, verstört:
verbrennt das ganze Erdenrund mit Gier!


Erkenn doch, Menschheit -blinde- schau':

Es fehlt an Wiesenduft, an Winterfell!

Es fehlt an frühem Rot, an spätem Blau!
-
Es fehlt an sonnenklarem Morgentau.

 

[JosEPh_II]

"And God said, Let us make man in our own image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth."

"And out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them to Adam to see what he would call them. And whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof. And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field."

JosEPh

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

We have talked about reducing the strength on hunters and recon, however I think we need to balance that with a reduction on the strength of the criminal units also. I am fed up with my explorers getting killed by ambushers, explorers are supposed to be tougher than that. Warlords are the unit that should be killing them just makes more sense.

I am about to start on splitting the hunting promotions into land and sea versions. The sea version needs a different set of requirements since ships tend not to enter forest or climb hills.

@Hydro Please changed Hunting Instruction now go obsolete at Dueling. I think this better reflects when hunting goes out of the mainstream. I wanted a tech that went between WWI and WWII but then settled on an earlier era.

 

[Hydromancerx]

@Hydro Please changed Hunting Instruction now go obsolete at Dueling. I think this better reflects when hunting goes out of the mainstream. I wanted a tech that went between WWI and WWII but then settled on an earlier era.

Ok I did. Note it was in the core so you could have done it without me.