Am still getting some questionable promotions upon upgrade to a unit?
I am asking this because i "personally" know the Martial Arts Welter Weight Martial Arts Champion for the whole East Coast, i was stationed with him at Fort Carson, Colorado. He was an expert marksman just like me and in the Military.
So what i am saying it does make sense to have a gun unit with martial arts training? Delta/Rangers/Green Beret etc etc...
It makes sense to me. From what I know, most rifle combat involves a degree of melee. This ranges from WW1 records to stories I've read from Iraq veterans.
I'll address that when I get around to adapting to a new 'distance vs h2h' fighting mechanism. For now... it's understandable the point you're making. But it's also terrible from a strategic pov. It's entirely a waste of promotion slots for anything but the earliest gunpowder units to maintain anti-melee effects and promos - much better to retrain them. Sucks to have a great military hobbled by the progress of time to the point that what they are specialized in combating continues to be specialized towards entirely obsolete units.
Though the ones that are free probably shouldn't be removed, such as the martial arts ones. That'll take some thought to see what we can do about those ones if we're losing them.
It is always going to be centuries between the first and last civs to get Gunpowder units. In the Brits' late 19th-century war with the Zulu, (how many centuries after Gunpowder units first appeared?), the Pinch promotion would've been no earthly use whatsoever. And this effect is even more exaggerated in the game.
Even your late Industrial Gunpowder units need their anti-melee and anti-archer promos.
I'll address that when I get around to adapting to a new 'distance vs h2h' fighting mechanism. For now... it's understandable the point you're making. But it's also terrible from a strategic pov. It's entirely a waste of promotion slots for anything but the earliest gunpowder units to maintain anti-melee effects and promos - much better to retrain them. Sucks to have a great military hobbled by the progress of time to the point that what they are specialized in combating continues to be specialized towards entirely obsolete units.
Though the ones that are free probably shouldn't be removed, such as the martial arts ones. That'll take some thought to see what we can do about those ones if we're losing them.
Your point is valid from gameplay perspective, but I don't see anything wrong with obsoleting old military units. Rearmaments have always been a big issue, and outdated military units have often enough met their end on the battlefield, not in paperwork. Just something to consider.
I just played some early GEM turns and have to say the stone throwers are very OP right now. Why is that?
One answer is they have early withdrawal 80% chance as well as a possible max flanking 3 (43% withdrawal).
In my early game I never lost a single stone thrower, basically it withdrew instead of being killed right off.
If I understood it right, the 43% come into play if the 20% to not withdraw after early losses are triggered? Well to me it seems broken, as they never die. I`m ok with early withdrawl, but it should be somehow balanced.
Because if a unit with strength 1 gets out alive a fight with a unit thats (base) strength 2 or 3 it receives a lot of great General XP for even one fight. Means like 3 xp for unit and like 3 GG xp each time it withdrawls which - as I already mentioned - is everytime it fights.
So farming generals like crazy + upgrading the stone thrower like it would be a terminator (look at my 122 xp stone thrower in screenie) is absolutely broken.
.
If it damages the enemy unit to an extend to soften its defense its fine but general xp for fleeing I'd say no.
I suggest no GG xp for withdrawal and also maybe only 0.25 xp max for unit.
tl;dr
A big problem is the exponential high xp rewards for base strength 1 surviving vs base strength 2 (or higher) units. Unadjusted to new "early withdrawal" this enables humans to exploit the mechanics.
Edit: Another thing: At eternity speed thiefs cost 375 and stone throwers 75. Because of its price I never built a thief but I liked to have a strength 1, 150 hammer costing early thief maybe called "Sneaker" or something, With some promotions it could hunt ducks and macaws and stuff but no bigger animals and it could explore as well...
I just played some early GEM turns and have to say the stone throwers are very OP right now. Why is that?
One answer is they have early withdrawal 80% chance as well as a possible max flanking 3 (43% withdrawal).
In my early game I never lost a single stone thrower, basically it withdrew instead of being killed right off.
If I understood it right, the 43% come into play if the 20% to not withdraw after early losses are triggered? Well to me it seems broken, as they never die. I`m ok with early withdrawl, but it should be somehow balanced.
Because if a unit with strength 1 gets out alive a fight with a unit thats (base) strength 2 or 3 it receives a lot of great General XP for even one fight. Means like 3 xp for unit and like 3 GG xp each time it withdrawls which - as I already mentioned - is everytime it fights.
So farming generals like crazy + upgrading the stone thrower like it would be a terminator (look at my 122 xp stone thrower in screenie) is absolutely broken.
.
If it damages the enemy unit to an extend to soften its defense its fine but general xp for fleeing I'd say no.
I suggest no GG xp for withdrawal and also maybe only 0.25 xp max for unit.
tl;dr
A big problem is the exponential high xp rewards for base strength 1 surviving vs base strength 2 (or higher) units. Unadjusted to new "early withdrawal" this enables humans to exploit the mechanics.
Edit: Another thing: At eternity speed thiefs cost 375 and stone throwers 75. Because of its price I never built a thief but I liked to have a strength 1, 150 hammer costing early thief maybe called "Sneaker" or something, With some promotions it could hunt ducks and macaws and stuff but no bigger animals and it could explore as well...
Sorta. 80% is not a 'chance' (and I think it's explained a little wrong in the display - something I noted the other day) it's the amount of health at which the unit will begin trying to retreat.
The issue with this is its a double-edged sword. On one hand it does in fact make the unit terribly difficult to kill. At the same time I agree with your assessment on the XP but mainly in the GG imbalance which could be repaired a bit with that Great Hunter concept we've been discussing. We'd also have to make granular xp awards acceptable without the Dynamic XP option in play.
What happens is that as soon as the unit has taken enough damage to be at 80% health (meaning only 20% injured or more) it will attempt a retreat every round until either dead or successful. Usually only one attempt to withdraw is ever given, once the unit has taken 100% of its health in damage or, in Early Withdrawal terms the unit is at 0% health (and would thus die that round if it DIDN'T withdraw instead).
Very powerful units can make stronger hits and reduce the # of rounds that the Early Withdrawer can attempt withdraw in by killing him off faster. And eventually Pursuit will start making even early withdrawal tough to succeed at - if there's no normal withdrawal ability left over after the pursuit, no amount of early withdrawal will count. And when you think about it, there's a hell of a lot of animals that should be able to pursue their prey! So part of the imbalance is that animals haven't caught up in their process updates.
So yes, powerful on that one hand. But on the other hand, this also means the unit begins retreating very early and may not have accomplished anywhere near as much during the battle to injure his foe. They have a few possible first strikes so they may well get a free try to harm the enemy or two. But thereafter, they're basically wusses and will run as soon as they get hurt. That doesn't make them all that good at dealing much damage after that point. If you ended up with 100% early withdraw, the unit is trying to get out of the fight every round.
The other downside of early withdrawal is that if you rely on it defensively you could easily get in trouble. If there's nowhere to run that is not completely unthreatened (not hard to corner a unit with threat zones alone) you cannot defensively withdraw. I've had many a stonethrower enter into such an oops situation in my testing, an animal comes up from behind and he has nowhere to run where he wouldn't be under threat so his grand ability completely fails him and he then easily becomes catfood.
I do think I need to give them a smaller scale withdrawal promo chain... the one they are using right now should be reserved for mounted but I gave it to them so that someone could figure out what makes them cool like you have before starting to try to reign them in a bit. If throwing units had their own unique withdrawal promo chain that didn't give quite so much benefit with each step, it could be far more balanced. In testing it was quite a crap shoot until they could get the second, even third tier of those promos then yes they were nearly immune unless cornered. Still rarely kill anything until they grow stronger from all that xp they get from withdrawing. And yeah, we should make withdrawal xp more granular for that reason too.
Since basic civ4 every combat class hava special promotion against it. DO we have vs wheeled?
I never seen it in any svn version. I saw vs throwing but not vs wheeled why?
Since basic civ4 every combat class hava special promotion against it. DO we have vs wheeled?
I never seen it in any svn version. I saw vs throwing but not vs wheeled why?
Wheeled wasn't mine, and isn't new. It's been extended to the Chariot and Wagon unit lines as an additional Combat Class. I feel it would be important to make them NOT mounted but rather something that still indicates the animal. THEN we could do something against Wheeled earlier in the game. And we could do something against particular mount types such as horses that would potentially affect Mounted AND Wheeled depending on which mount type they are using etc... Otherwise right now the Mounted AND Wheeled lines having an anti-promotion line would be too weighted against them. Imagine a Spearman with both lines developed... that'd be a spearman able to take down a river of chariots.
And fyi, later in the game there's some anti-wheeled promos but they are blended in with some other 'anti' effects and around then at least will eventually be getting some restructuring of promotions, one intention being to have a more specific anti-wheeled promo line.
Wheeled wasn't mine, and isn't new. It's been extended to the Chariot and Wagon unit lines as an additional Combat Class. I feel it would be important to make them NOT mounted but rather something that still indicates the animal. THEN we could do something against Wheeled earlier in the game. And we could do something against particular mount types such as horses that would potentially affect Mounted AND Wheeled depending on which mount type they are using etc... Otherwise right now the Mounted AND Wheeled lines having an anti-promotion line would be too weighted against them. Imagine a Spearman with both lines developed... that'd be a spearman able to take down a river of chariots.
And fyi, later in the game there's some anti-wheeled promos but they are blended in with some other 'anti' effects and around then at least will eventually be getting some restructuring of promotions, one intention being to have a more specific anti-wheeled promo line.
1. Can you code a promotion to benefit you only against units that are both Mounted and Wheeled? That would be very handy, and other combos probably would too.
2. Mounted as a class doesn't do justice to elephants and mammoths, they should have their own class don't you think?
Anyway, on to why I really came here.
When I build a hero, I always give them Lieutenant and Strategist promotions.
Lieutenant gives Blitz (multiple attacks per turn) and 33% vs. Melee
Strategist gives Commando (Can Use Enemy Roads) and 33% (I think) vs. Mounted
That is, they each give two benefits that would be worthwhile by themselves. Please consider moving one of those benefits from each to another promo. Many of the others have extremely niche benefits at the moment (eg. several are mainly healing iirc).
1. Can you code a promotion to benefit you only against units that are both Mounted and Wheeled? That would be very handy, and other combos probably would too.
It's possible but not optimal in the way it would need to be done. It involves making the whole promotion only apply IF the unit is in combat with an established unit 'type' defined by any number of parameters to the nth degree with an expression system boolean. There will still be a little work to make that work correctly, particularly in how to create a text display that would accompany both the promotion and the unit and how to get it to gel with the combat help hover too. It would also be something that would have to be evaluated during the odds evaluation. All that said, the processing on these complex expression system booleans might be a bit slow too, particularly with this sort of application. BUT its the best way to make something like this work. I figured I'd try to withhold some of these sorts of complex CC qualified effects until later work on the combat mod but I'm not against making them happen at all. In fact I plan to utilize this method once I'm more comfortable with it.
2. Mounted as a class doesn't do justice to elephants and mammoths, they should have their own class don't you think?
There's going to be a number of ways to isolate these sorts of things. Is it the Mount TYPE that makes it different? Perhaps you could use the Elephant combat class itself. Or perhaps it'd be more important to isolate their size Combat Class for whatever effect you have in mind. Or perhaps its the fact that there's a Rider that's openly exposed (Riding CC). "Mounted" becomes then a more generic layer that indicates you have a rider, a mount, and a preference of fighting while mounted. It's a 'Primary COMBAT Class, one of those in the core that indicates 'how the unit fights (in broad definitions),' which is what Combat Class originally meant in the first place.
This being the boundaries of the Mounted CC definition, I think that Elephants and Mammoths fit the role.
Back, however, to combine these subjects, perhaps 'Drawn' should be added to give us a definition of 'Mount assisted Vehicle'. However, Mounted tends to fit there too, as does wheeled. Usually the strategies that would be good against other mounted units would work equally as well against 'Drawn' units and strategies that would be good against other wheeled units would also work just as well against 'drawn' units. So I'm not sure yet that 'Drawn' needs to be a CC. We can consider it 'on the table for consideration' so if we see an effect that requires both, like you mentioned above, we could find it worth adding as perhaps a 'Motility' category CC. (Actually... this is probably a good idea in general if you have anything that would affect specifically the weaknesses or strengths of this animal drawn unique structure of the unit. The units aren't really Riding and they aren't really Driving so yeah, probably Drawn would be a good addition there.)
I am not really a programer, but I am a great Ideas person. Can someone take these ideas and make them work as promotions?
All these promotions will apply to the GG only, not to any other units.
Is there a way for each promotion to include the benefits of all the previous promotions without having to take them? For example, you get a new Great General, and you have already researched the tech Horse Breeding. When the GG gets his first promotion, he can choose to take War Horses, without having to take Horse or coach, but War Horses gives the benefits of Horse and Coach as well as War Horses. This is to keep the Generals promotions up to the current tech, without making him take all the other promotions first to get there.
Spoiler:
Horse
Not available till tech animal riding.
Gives -1 terrain cost.
Coach
Not available till Chariotry
Gives +1 movement point.
War Horses
Not available till Horse Breeding
Use Enemy roads
Thoroughbred Horse
not available till Military Tradition
+1 Movement point
Jeep
Not available till Combustion
Ignore all terrain costs
Command Car
Not available till Motorized Transportation
+1 Mp
Bell-47 Bubble Helicopter
Not available till Vertical Flight
Move Impassible terrain
Huey Helicopter
Not available till Modern Warfare
+1 Mp, can stop in water terrain
Blackhawk Helicopter
Not available till Cognitive Robotics
+1 Mp
Drop Ship
Not available till War Machines
+1 Mp
these promotions replace the one before, but do not require the previous promotions to be taken first.
Is there a way to have each promotion include the +Strength from the ones before?
They are all level 1 promotions, the previous promotion goes obsolete when the tech is reached for the next one.
Spoiler:
Body guards 1
Not available till Military Training
5 combat strength, defense only
Bodyguard 2
Not available till Feudalism
+5 Combat Strength, defense only (or 10 total)
Bodyguard 3
Not available till Matchlock
+5 Combat strength, defense only (or 15 total)
Bodyguard 4
Not available till Military Tradition
+5 Combat Strength, defense only (or 20 total)
Bodyguard 5
Not available till Steam Power
+5 combat strength, defense only (or 25 total)
Bodyguard 6
Not available till Semi-Automatic Weapons
+5 combat strength, defense only (or 30 total)
Bodyguard 7
Not available till Combustion
+5 combat strength, defense only (or 35 total)
Bodyguard 8
Not available till Motorized Transport
+5 combat strength, defense only (or 40 total)
Bodyguard 9
Not available till Armored Vehicles
+5 combat strength, defense only (or 45 total)
Bodyguard 10
Not available till Mechanized Warfare
+5 combat strength, defense only (or 50 total)
Bodyguard 11
Not available till Computers
+5 combat strength, defense only (or 55 total)
Bodyguard 12
Not available till Vertical Flight
+5 combat strength, defense only (or 60 total)
Bodyguard 13
Not available till Modern Warfare
+10 Combat Strength, defense only (or 70 total)
Bodyguard 14
Not available till Cognitive Robotics
+10 Combat Strength, defense only (or 80 total)
Bodyguard 15
Not available till War Machines
+20 Combat Strength, defense only (or 100 total)
I am not really a programer, but I am a great Ideas person. Can someone take these ideas and make them work as promotions?
All these promotions will apply to the GG only, not to any other units.
Is there a way for each promotion to include the benefits of all the previous promotions without having to take them? For example, you get a new Great General, and you have already researched the tech Horse Breeding. When the GG gets his first promotion, he can choose to take War Horses, without having to take Horse or coach, but War Horses gives the benefits of Horse and Coach as well as War Horses. This is to keep the Generals promotions up to the current tech, without making him take all the other promotions first to get there.
Spoiler:
Horse
Not available till tech animal riding.
Gives -1 terrain cost.
Coach
Not available till Chariotry
Gives +1 movement point.
War Horses
Not available till Horse Breeding
Use Enemy roads
Thoroughbred Horse
not available till Military Tradition
+1 Movement point
Jeep
Not available till Combustion
Ignore all terrain costs
Command Car
Not available till Motorized Transportation
+1 Mp
Bell-47 Bubble Helicopter
Not available till Vertical Flight
Move Impassible terrain
Huey Helicopter
Not available till Modern Warfare
+1 Mp, can stop in water terrain
Blackhawk Helicopter
Not available till Cognitive Robotics
+1 Mp
Drop Ship
Not available till War Machines
+1 Mp
these promotions replace the one before, but do not require the previous promotions to be taken first.
Is there a way to have each promotion include the +Strength from the ones before?
They are all level 1 promotions, the previous promotion goes obsolete when the tech is reached for the next one.
Spoiler:
Body guards 1
Not available till Military Training
5 combat strength, defense only
Bodyguard 2
Not available till Feudalism
+5 Combat Strength, defense only (or 10 total)
Bodyguard 3
Not available till Matchlock
+5 Combat strength, defense only (or 15 total)
Bodyguard 4
Not available till Military Tradition
+5 Combat Strength, defense only (or 20 total)
Bodyguard 5
Not available till Steam Power
+5 combat strength, defense only (or 25 total)
Bodyguard 6
Not available till Semi-Automatic Weapons
+5 combat strength, defense only (or 30 total)
Bodyguard 7
Not available till Combustion
+5 combat strength, defense only (or 35 total)
Bodyguard 8
Not available till Motorized Transport
+5 combat strength, defense only (or 40 total)
Bodyguard 9
Not available till Armored Vehicles
+5 combat strength, defense only (or 45 total)
Bodyguard 10
Not available till Mechanized Warfare
+5 combat strength, defense only (or 50 total)
Bodyguard 11
Not available till Computers
+5 combat strength, defense only (or 55 total)
Bodyguard 12
Not available till Vertical Flight
+5 combat strength, defense only (or 60 total)
Bodyguard 13
Not available till Modern Warfare
+10 Combat Strength, defense only (or 70 total)
Bodyguard 14
Not available till Cognitive Robotics
+10 Combat Strength, defense only (or 80 total)
Bodyguard 15
Not available till War Machines
+20 Combat Strength, defense only (or 100 total)
The first is easily accomplished by equipment upgrades.
The second... it would be possible, particularly as a rather unique form of equipment. BUT we'd have to be able to EITHER give strength boosts to the units they command OR strength boosts to themselves. I think it's probably currently setup that use of the strength adjustment promotion tag would give its boost to commanded units but that can be changed because combat modifier %s will still affect the units in the command radius. Interesting concept. The trick to 'defense only' would be to simply give the commander units a positive on that boolean at all times.
At what point are stack promotions?? Remember that some stack promos should by only appiled to some combat Classes ex Sege tower stack promo that ignores no entry level only for foot units.
I'll be working on those as soon as much of what's been presented in the Combat Mod has actually manifested. I wouldn't be too impatient as its going to take a while yet. But its definitely important to the final plan, yes. It's also going to be interesting to do it in a way that isn't going to impede processing significantly.
For the bodyguards on Great Generals, I was thinking along the lines that a General will gather some loyal troops around him, so that your General is not automatically killed if caught alone. Also I was thinking of giving the GG a high withdraw chance when he reaches 20% damage, maybe even as high as 80% chance to withdraw. A General and a few bodyguards should be able to hide and get away when attacked alone. The strength makes him equal but a little bit weaker than other contemporary units of the current tech.
Establishing a withdrawal ability on such a commander would be a near impossibility - you'd have to create a whole copy of the entire withdrawal mechanism to enable it.
Not really. I agree with the sentiment that Strike Teams would want to target such units first and they should be capable of doing so but I will have to do a little research into what it would take to enable commanders to have a strength value of their own.
The trick to making it balanced is to an extent already 'in play'. Units can be made to target more than one 'type' first. Then OF the units in the stack they are attacking that qualify to be included in the group that could be eligible for being attacked first, those units are treated as a first stack to be evaluated and the evaluation goes much like any other stack being attacked - they'll send their strongest unit up first and will consider 'special' units half as strong for this evaluation.
So this means you can put units in the stack that would 'guard' the more critical 'special' units like commanders from this sort of 'sniping' special attack. I've been looking hard at Law Enforcement and Canine units as candidates for this sort of role. Thus, if you put some dogs and/or guard units in your stack, you'd be fairly well protected from Strike Teams taking out your commanders until those teams had worn down your guards to the point that they can make a breakthrough. Healers are also part of this picture as assassins and such will go after them 'first' as well. So they need protecting too. Another really good unit to counter Assassins in particular will be the Shaolin Monk, a very powerful fighting 'healer'.
You'll notice in my withdrawal/pursuit/early withdrawal workup, Law Enforcement units have a bonus to pursue criminals. This will work well at protecting against these sort of attacks until they stop being criminals and start being 'snipers'. So perhaps later guard units should have some skill at pursuit vs strike teams as well.
Can you make the Commando (use enemy roads) promo available earlier please? Using a road isn't exactly rocket surgery is it? It is quite hard to get even without the tech prereq (that is of course, other than on uniques, heroes and many Mounteds that - bizarrely - start with it), so why not make it available pretty much with the first paths in Prehistoric. If not, at least with Mud Paths or whatever they are in early Ancient.
Then you could take it off Horsemen and Elephant Riders etc. and make them earn it.
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It is quite hard to get even without the tech prereq (that is of course, other than on uniques, heroes and many Mounteds that - bizarrely - start with it), so why not make it available pretty much with the first paths in Prehistoric. If not, at least with Mud Paths or whatever they are in early Ancient.
