C2C: Promotions

[Thunderbrd]

Now that I've steamed off a bit I'm reminding myself that we're still friends and we can come together to make some compromises. That starts with an attempt to understand the other.

Believe it or not I understand where you're coming from ls. It's pretty simple. Until the vision is put in place and players get a chance to experience what it is I've intended for this mod, I don't expect anyone who hadn't been envisioning something similar for a long time prior to this to be able to easily see what kind of play experiences this can provide. By this, I mean everything in the combat mod working in tangent with what we already have in the CivIV combat system.

I mean, I get it... my vision here is complex. It's meant to be. That's exactly whats going to make it work is that it will be an intellectually stimulating challenge that civ has lost for most of us as a result of ultimate familiarity. It's particularly confusing for a designer trying to understand it from my overly verbose explanations, trying to pick up on what it is I'm reaching for here, trying to envision, without experiencing it, how this will impact the game experience.

Were I looking at all this from your perspective I probably wouldn't feel much different. I'd be making all the arguments you're making. I'd be resistant because it would be... well... bewildering and frustrating and I wouldn't see the point.

I promise, however, that I have done everything I can to make the entire system, all the new tags, all the new mechanisms such as equipments and afflictions, completely self-explanatory to the player. It's not going to require that we read and understand everything I wrote in the introductions. It will explain itself as you go. The new combat help pages I've added will fully divulge how the modifiers are all compiling. The text descriptions of each one should explain more than enough to gain the initial understanding of how each new feature will play out. As a player new to the combat mod takes his initial steps into the new systems, it will be with the exploratory spirit intended. It will only take but a bit of game experience to fully understand every detail as they are encountered.

But for a designer trying to wrap his head around 'the plan' here would be hell if you hadn't been imagining much the same beforehand, as we see from Hydro's reaction, someone who inspired a great many of the concepts I set forth to empower the mod to deliver.

And this is exactly why I didn't open up these concepts to henpecking and nitpicking and well, frankly, this:

The whole combat mod could have been discussed and pruned during the summer and molded into a streamlined and not overly-detailed system.

Because until its experienced, you probably won't understand what these concepts will bring to the mod and to its gameplay. You aren't alone. I figure there's a number of others following this discussion that are completely siding with you here because they, too, don't glimpse the vision as I have, and as Hydro has.

I never intended to 'move in on your territory'. You've made the point numerous times about how much authority you're supposed to have over the units and promotions. I'm quite happy to take your consultation on adjustments once I feel you understand what the combat mod is really all about and can see where tweaks are necessary rather than the slashing and hacking apart of its entire design. But I haven't done this to step on you. Rather I've done it so that this, the HEART of the game (I'm not against anyone seeing the combat side of civ as being a distraction from the game but I, for one, consider it the whole point) gets the same loving attention to detail that the rest of C2C has received. I was responding to discussions and ideas that were thrown around long ago and have only now come about to manifest.

So I'm going to try to respect your position on all of this. I've already promised to set forth a mod plan with any future project before beginning in earnest to develop it out. And if I felt the core team was upset by what the combat mod is bringing to the table, we'd be having that more serious discussion you're talking about. But all I ask is that you simply relax. Ignore the combat mod for now. Develop units as you always have because its on the back of that existing balance that the new stuff rests as it goes in to deepen, but should not greatly upset, the current design.

In the meantime, what I would LIKE to do is have full reign to develop the xml end of the combat mod as a module. I want to do it in the module form at first because there will be a natural development border for a while, where a player, throughout the course of the game, would inevitably cross a point where they will cease operating with the combat mod's game balances and drop off into a realm of incredible IMbalance as a result. So until most of it is developed in the xml, or a good model from which to start evaluating at least, I want it quarantined to a development sector.

Then, once the module is ready for activation for the mainstream players, we'll simply turn it on by default and let those players judge for themselves whether your fears have manifested and the mod has become burdensome and overbearing with minutae. I don't deny the possibility that some will feel this way, but the wonderful element of working it this way is that the module can be simply omitted by those players who feel this way. This was my intention from the beginning, as I explained.

So lets make it simple. Don't bother working it at all if its going to be as you'd proposed. Because it will make the effort to make the module all the more difficult as I'll have to work out how to make it override everything else you've done to implement the combat mod in the process.

Then, once its ready, play it a bit and see what you think and then I think we can begin to hammer it out into something that's a bit more pleasing for all. I really don't think you'll find it so bad as you believe it will be now thanks to the impression that trying to understand it all so you can implement it all has left you. Through play, I think you'll get a completely different impression, but only if its been designed with the care and thought I mean to infuse it with rather than a bunch of flatly simplified implementations designed to help us all ignore it as quickly as we can.

 

[ls612]

@Thunderbrd:
Responding in parts

I mean, I get it... my vision here is complex. It's meant to be. That's exactly whats going to make it work is that it will be an intellectually stimulating challenge that civ has lost for most of us as a result of ultimate familiarity. It's particularly confusing for a designer trying to understand it from my overly verbose explanations, trying to pick up on what it is I'm reaching for here, trying to envision, without experiencing it, how this will impact the game experience.

Were I looking at all this from your perspective I probably wouldn't feel much different. I'd be making all the arguments you're making. I'd be resistant because it would be... well... bewildering and frustrating and I wouldn't see the point.

I promise, however, that I have done everything I can to make the entire system, all the new tags, all the new mechanisms such as equipments and afflictions, completely self-explanatory to the player. It's not going to require that we read and understand everything I wrote in the introductions. It will explain itself as you go. The new combat help pages I've added will fully divulge how the modifiers are all compiling. The text descriptions of each one should explain more than enough to gain the initial understanding of how each new feature will play out. As a player new to the combat mod takes his initial steps into the new systems, it will be with the exploratory spirit intended. It will only take but a bit of game experience to fully understand every detail as they are encountered.

But for a designer trying to wrap his head around 'the plan' here would be hell if you hadn't been imagining much the same beforehand, as we see from Hydro's reaction, someone who inspired a great many of the concepts I set forth to empower the mod to deliver.

I've read over the data you sent and your explanations of how it works in your four threads, as well as looked at some of the new code, and I'm pretty sure I understand everything combat-related in the Combat Mod (I've ignored the new Disease stuff, as I think there is a more simple Disease system under development). And that's not the issue. As a developer and a modder I understand all of the mechanics well enough. I see no way however to make this all into a system that will be fun, functional, and balanced. Implementing parts of it should be fairly painless and a great improvement to C2C, but many other parts will look like just "fluff" to most new players. What I mean by that is not that they aren't important, they are, but that no one will want to now have to learn how Dodge, Precision, Fortify, Dig in, Armor, Puncture, Power Attacks, Knockback, Pursuit, Early this and that, Stampede, etc affect strategies and tactics. That wall of stats will alienate people who will be totally confused by it. And most people don't read the forums as thoroughly as you or I do, so they won't read the explanations about it and will be stumped, and therefore repelled from C2C. I disagree with parts of the Combat Mod from a fundamental design standpoint, as they don't feel like civ to me.

Because until its experienced, you probably won't understand what these concepts will bring to the mod and to its gameplay. You aren't alone. I figure there's a number of others following this discussion that are completely siding with you here because they, too, don't glimpse the vision as I have, and as Hydro has.

I never intended to 'move in on your territory'. You've made the point numerous times about how much authority you're supposed to have over the units and promotions. I'm quite happy to take your consultation on adjustments once I feel you understand what the combat mod is really all about and can see where tweaks are necessary rather than the slashing and hacking apart of its entire design. But I haven't done this to step on you. Rather I've done it so that this, the HEART of the game (I'm not against anyone seeing the combat side of civ as being a distraction from the game but I, for one, consider it the whole point) gets the same loving attention to detail that the rest of C2C has received. I was responding to discussions and ideas that were thrown around long ago and have only now come about to manifest.

This is starting to sound like "I know better than you what a good vision is" argument, and that sort of thing is rather insulting. We are all competent here, we can understand plans if they are explained to us. That is the whole premise of C2C development, that we discuss new features, and trust that all of us modders will understand new mechanics. To say that this one is not for us to have any say in because it's too complicated is really talking down to us. And I don't see you as 'infringing on my territory', adding new DLL mechanics has never been my 'territory' (why is this a territory issue anyways?).

So I'm going to try to respect your position on all of this. I've already promised to set forth a mod plan with any future project before beginning in earnest to develop it out. And if I felt the core team was upset by what the combat mod is bringing to the table, we'd be having that more serious discussion you're talking about. But all I ask is that you simply relax. Ignore the combat mod for now. Develop units as you always have because its on the back of that existing balance that the new stuff rests as it goes in to deepen, but should not greatly upset, the current design.

In the meantime, what I would LIKE to do is have full reign to develop the xml end of the combat mod as a module. I want to do it in the module form at first because there will be a natural development border for a while, where a player, throughout the course of the game, would inevitably cross a point where they will cease operating with the combat mod's game balances and drop off into a realm of incredible IMbalance as a result. So until most of it is developed in the xml, or a good model from which to start evaluating at least, I want it quarantined to a development sector.

Sure, go ahead. Making it a module (or a gameoption) would be fine, then we can see if it works and is balanced at all, while still having the bulk of our efforts focused on Multi-Maps and the Galactic Era. I'll probably end up implementing many parts of the Combat Mod that I feel there is little argument about (see below) anyway, as otherwise I'd have nothing to do (well, not really, I could always start working on another department, but I like units, promotions, gamespeeds/balance, and techs for now).

@Hydro:

I saw your post as well, and think that many of your uses for the Equipment system are actually not Equipment, at least in the manner that T-brd designed it, but really just new promotions, like Bamboo Armor, that are given by buildings and not by experience. And I'm totally in favor of adding things like that, just not as de jure equipment, but as de facto equipment which are in the code normal promotions.

Also, for reference, here are the things I really LIKE about the combat mod and congratulate Thunderbrd for making.

(this is by no means exhaustive, just what I can think of OTOH)

• Promotion Lines
• Unit Subcombats
• The Three new SAD mechanics (high time to expand that component)
• Stampede
• Fortify Modifiers

 

[Hydromancerx]

This is starting to sound like "I know better than you what a good vision is" argument, and that sort of thing is rather insulting. We are all competent here, we can understand plans if they are explained to us. That is the whole premise of C2C development, that we discuss new features, and trust that all of us modders will understand new mechanics. To say that this one is not for us to have any say in because it's too complicated is really talking down to us. And I don't see you as 'infringing on my territory', adding new DLL mechanics has never been my 'territory' (why is this a territory issue anyways?).

I don't think he was talking down, but just trying to re-explain himself. I sometimes get confused about what others are saying on here and will ask people to explains some more what they mean. I have had many PMs with SO where I tried to explain something to him and he got all confused and then I re-explained and the was like "oh duh!'. So yeah I don't think anyone here intentionally talks down to anyone. (note this was not talking down to you about talking down. LOL!)

@Hydro:

I saw your post as well, and think that many of your uses for the Equipment system are actually not Equipment, at least in the manner that T-brd designed it, but really just new promotions, like Bamboo Armor, that are given by buildings and not by experience. And I'm totally in favor of adding things like that, just not as de jure equipment, but as de facto equipment which are in the code normal promotions.

Well yes, however its enhanced by his system. One thing that makes it different is the ability to replace a promotion with another promotion rather than stacking promotions. Right now Segmented Armor and Bamboo Armor stack while in the other system one would replace the other.

 

[ls612]

I don't think we was talking down, but just trying to re-explain himself. I sometimes get confused about what others are saying on here and will ask people to explains some more what they mean. I have had many PMs with SO where I tried to explain something to him and he got all confused and then I re-explained and the was like "oh duh!'. So yeah I don't think anyone here intentionally talks down to anyone. (noe this was not talking down to you about talking down. LOL)

Sure, but why not do this as part of the development process of the Combat Mod and not now all at once with no opportunity for debate or suggestions? I don't think it was intentionally talking down, but that's sort of how it felt to me. I could understand the combat mod just as well learning it over months and in parts as I can understand it now that it's all there.

 

[Hydromancerx]

Well I know the combat mod is his "baby" and he will get defensive about it. I feel the same way about many aspects of C2C and C2C as a mod. I am sure you feel the same way to things you have modded in C2C.

In this particular case I was very surprised at your reaction. Which is why I wanted to make sure to back up TB since I did not want him to be too discouraged by your comments. Most everything he has brought up I think is amazing if it can be accomplished.

I am not too worried about new players since C2C has never been dumbing things down. We have smart players and given enough time they will adapt and learn to use new features. Sure there will be the occasional NOOB that rage quits but there are far more players who appreciated the level of detail we add to C2C than you think.

And really I think that sets us apart from most mods.

 

[ls612]

Well I know the combat mod is his "baby" and he will get defensive about it. I feel the same way about many aspects of C2C and C2C as a mod. I am sure you feel the same way to things you have modded in C2C.

In this particular case I was very surprised at your reaction. Which is why I wanted to make sure to back up TB since I did not want him to be too discouraged by your comments. Most everything he has brought up I think is amazing if it can be accomplished.

I am not too worried about new players since C2C has never been dumbing things down. We have smart players and given enough time they will adapt and learn to use new features. Sure there will be the occasional NOOB that rage quits but there are far more players who appreciated the level of detail we add to C2C than you think.

And really I think that sets us apart from most mods.

I read and post to other parts of the forum, and people who don't hang around here always ask me when we'll have Multi-Maps, even though it isn't related to the discussion. When we add that in a month or two that will bring in a lot of new players if my analysis is correct, and we don't want to have them be confused by the Combat mod and pushed away from Multi-Maps. That is also why I've been pushing for later era hammer cost balancing for a month, I've been taking a long view on the future of the mod.

And I'm not trying to bushwhack the whole combat mod, as I've said repeatedly I like a lot of it. But parts of it IMO don't fit with the idea of a civ game, or are superfluous. I didn't want to get rid of everything MrAzure designed, we kept ~40 of his techs for the TH era that were good. But we do need to have a good discussion on what will make C2C the best mod it can be and not be counterproductive.

 

[Hydromancerx]

Well I do agree that the Combat Mod probably could have been done at a better time, however we have been waiting a long time for multi-maps (even though his just pushed it back more). And I understand how you feel about new players. It really is a never ending battle to make things with less bugs, more clear and understandable.

All I am saying is that the Combat Mod, while more complex than we have now can bring great new features that that have been long overdue for a mod such as C2C. If the building game is Sim City then the combat game is still rock, paper, scissors. Bringing it up will be confusing at first but hopefully we can make it robust enough. Your bringing up this issue alone is one step in the right direction to both a more complex but also intuitive combat system.

In short I think TB needs your skepticism as much as my encouragement if we want to make the Combat System done right.

 

[Vokarya]

I read and post to other parts of the forum, and people who don't hang around here always ask me when we'll have Multi-Maps, even though it isn't related to the discussion. When we add that in a month or two that will bring in a lot of new players if my analysis is correct, and we don't want to have them be confused by the Combat mod and pushed away from Multi-Maps. That is also why I've been pushing for later era hammer cost balancing for a month, I've been taking a long view on the future of the mod.

And I'm not trying to bushwhack the whole combat mod, as I've said repeatedly I like a lot of it. But parts of it IMO don't fit with the idea of a civ game, or are superfluous. I didn't want to get rid of everything MrAzure designed, we kept ~40 of his techs for the TH era that were good. But we do need to have a good discussion on what will make C2C the best mod it can be and not be counterproductive.

I'm going to have to agree here. I haven't been delving into this stuff with a lot of detail, but I'm starting to get afraid of what's being proposed.

Here's what I see as potential problems. You can correct me if I'm wrong.

• Walls of text. If you introduce concepts that are too technical, you need a lot of text to explain them -- but that will turn off a lot of players. You need to trim down concepts to get them into the "mindspace" of the player, but if they are that small, then why bother including them at all?
• "One True Way" thinking. I feel there is a concentrated effort here to make units so dependent on the new stuff that any old stuff has to be disregarded. To borrow from another topic, I've flat out said no to several of Praetyre's requests to add building requirements to my contributions. I've added a few, but I turned down half of his requests. Trying to model every single possibility, to me, is bordering on the ridiculous.
• If there are any kind of decisions to make when a unit is attacked, that will be an absolute deal-breaker for me, as it just doesn't fit with Civilization. I'm especially thinking of various multiplayer ways of playing.
• Material with major flaws. Test, test, test! Check your stuff before you add it to SVN. Stuff can be put in that needs polishing, but try to refine it a little before you add it. The problems that I saw with lost promotions/too many promotions/"retraining points" does not give me a lot of confidence.

 

[GiuseppeIII]

When you said wall of texts i thought to myself. Dont we allready have at problem. When you scroll over a unit you alot of the times cant see all the unit or promotions also you cant see the whole building description or even the whole description for the religious leader trait. This could prbably be fixed by having a scroll button on the side of texts boxes that are bigger than the screen

 

[Thunderbrd]

@ls612: I really wasn't trying to insult your intelligence but I see where that could be coming across. I'm just trying to make the point that any artist makes and that is that I can see how to balance the entire structure and can easily understand why you don't see how. But that is no reason to seek to veto anything you haven't tried in play yet.

It's tough for me to understand why you'd want to shave things down before they've even been included and tested in play, especially given how many ideas have had their chance in the spotlight before feedback can be offered. It shows an equally insulting lack of faith. Personally, I think the players that come here for multi-maps and find the combat mod as another element included will be all the more thrilled by the new strategic layers as well. I mean where's the optimism here??? The spirit of modding is exploring new ideas so how can we be so pessimistic as to the possible results of new details?

I also wasn't 100% in agreement that we should have cut down Azure's developments either. I kinda saw that as a violation of his creative rights too and a great way to insult someone who put in enormous effort to help us. We didn't even give him the chance to develop it out into what he could see it becoming before we attacked his concepts. And I won't be the next victim of that kind of pre-auditing of a crystalline vision that I'm quite certain nobody else can clearly share until experienced. I trusted Azure's material would be quite good and I never really saw much cause to cut it apart as we did.

That's how I approach everyone's additions to the mod. I myself realize I will not fully grasp how someone else's ideas will change the feel of the game in play until I play it with those modifications included. THEN I'm quite happy to point out where I see problems. I'm just asking for the same approach from my contemporaries here.

But I think we're beginning to both relax a bit more and can begin to start trying to harmonize some efforts now. There are a number of things that will take time to balance for the combat mod before it should be revealed. I want it to be fairly well developed before even including the module as a default. BUT there are some areas that are probably great for core inclusion right away, and so that we don't screw up each other but rather work together, I'd like to suggest a few areas that were designed to go onto the base unit definitions and some fairly generic skill promotion lines that we can begin focusing on working in directly without need for a modularized quarantine during development.

These include:
* Minor subcombat definitions where its desperately and obviously needed such as we've already done with criminals and canines. I also would suggest, perhaps even request, that our throwing weapon units take on a fairly base unitcombat definition of their own since we're growing more comfortable defining unit combats now. They are very different in combat function being a unit that fights in the zone between archers and melee. Having those set up with their own primary Combat Class will make the job on the modular side much easier.

* The S&D modifiers? yes... go for it. I MAY want to redefine a little in this area where polearm units are concerned but for the most part its fairly independent of other areas of Combat Mod development. We also need some good ai for that but Koshling had some great ideas there and I'm really hoping it is possible for the new tags to help promote those ideas rather than make them much harder to implement.

* Stampede? Absolutely. A fairly basic addition really, unless we're talking about how it is meant to work into skill promos but I think we largely agree on most of those points and if its put into play in basic form, some of the more detailed manipulations of a unit's ability to stampede or not can be developed later or in the module. Along these lines, establishing some guidelines on what units could possibly Onslaught is a good idea to take a look at too, especially for you as you know the late tech units better than I do.

*Pursuit: would be very helpful at the moment to define base pursuit values on units. Even if I'll need to un-define any of those values on the standard units with the module, it wouldn't be any worse to do so than any of the other combat modifiers on units already. With or without the module in play, pursuit will be necessary to balance withdrawal even as it is now. I'm trying to work out a method with Koshling's advice, on how to keep the withdrawal cap if pursuit isn't in use in the mod, but if we can get it into play in the core I think it will be worth it for all players.

*Early Withdrawal - You had some great ideas and were right in tune with the concept when you made your initial proposition regarding redefining units with combat mod tags a while back. I don't see stuff that will be in the module manipulating or using this much - more of a unit base ability except that mount equips could 'modify' this feature. But promos and base unit definitions shouldn't need the module for inclusion. With Pursuit in play, it should make for some interesting interactions.

Not sure about fortify modifiers yet so I'd leave that until the above are better fleshed out first.

What I'll be doing inside the scope of the module is mostly working Equipments, Afflictions, and all the necessary SubCombat Classes needed to support those systems. They need a lot of patient detail and attention to get right and shouldn't be in play until, for the most part, they are ready.

Imagine if SO had started including Heroes one at a time... wouldn't have come in with any sense of balance. Now that its here we find various places where tweaks are necessary, but very few of us complain and most of us, like myself, love how they add to the game. I'd think there'd have been loudly emergent voices trying to make sure it never saw the light of day had he introduced the concept of them first and subjected them to editing without any play experience. That's why I want to just develop these items in a separate area before exposing them to the general core play.

Can you work with this then? Will you be willing to suspend judgment until you can experience how it plays out?


@Hydro: I will definitely be wanting help and support, and I'll concede to you completely regarding artistic design (though will make some further proposals and responses on this issue still in an attempt to keep a volley going until we're both quite happy with the basic design methods we'll be employing.) I don't want you to have to DO much here but I want the application of your expansive mind throughout this process. I'd love to start a thread or two when I'm ready to start zooming in on these modular projects and I'll be looking for us to ping off each other there to make sure it all comes together. If you'd prefer to keep it in PMs so as to not spill too much to the onlooking potential players, that works well for me too. And thank you for your support.


@Vokarya:
To respond to your concerns:
1) There are some areas where text can be shaved and I'm welcome to your suggested edits and will try not to fight you. I don't like sterile text much but we can possibly come to consensus in most areas I think. Sometimes I just get too wordy where its not necessary... I understand that. Nevertheless, this is the easiest edited area in this whole thing.
2) I would actually prefer that a player CAN choose to disable and play without almost any section of the combat mod they don't like and its going to be part of my ongoing development of this mod to empower players with choice. I don't want to strip units of the balance they already have since it'd be nice if we can allow them to back out of just about all of the combat mod adjustments they don't like at will without throwing their game into imbalance.
3) No decisions are made when a unit is attacked. I've done nothing, nor have ever planned anything, that would make this take place. It'd be too burdensome to do so... like seriously badly.
4) Many of the major flaws worked just fine when tested, but Koshling found better ways to redesign for streamlining the code and making the whole thing work better overall. There were some noteworthy problems there in transition. Additionally I rushed a few things to completion without proper testing because he and ls612 were wanting to further develop an area that overlapped with some regions I'd been working on and I had to just commit so they could do so without us messing each other up. Some of the code can't even be properly tested without working this module either so its still an ongoing effort in the coding. Can any other coder here say their adjustments have all went into the svn without some bugs and tweaking to get right?

Anyhow, the test test test ideal is a big part of why I want to isolate much of the further xml development of the combat mod before exposing it to open playtesting.

 

[Hydromancerx]

@Hydro: I will definitely be wanting help and support, and I'll concede to you completely regarding artistic design (though will make some further proposals and responses on this issue still in an attempt to keep a volley going until we're both quite happy with the basic design methods we'll be employing.) I don't want you to have to DO much here but I want the application of your expansive mind throughout this process. I'd love to start a thread or two when I'm ready to start zooming in on these modular projects and I'll be looking for us to ping off each other there to make sure it all comes together. If you'd prefer to keep it in PMs so as to not spill too much to the onlooking potential players, that works well for me too. And thank you for your support.

Sounds good. Keep me updated on your progress and I will gladly give you any ideas or insight that come to mind both in game and artistic design. PMs and/or forum are fine. Whatever you are comfortable with sharing. I know with the heroes that SO wanted to keep them hidden until he revealed them. If you wish to do stuff like that I am fine too. However you may want to keep ls612 in the loop too (maybe not for graphics decisions though).

 

[Thunderbrd]

Sounds good. Keep me updated on your progress and I will gladly give you any ideas or insight that come to mind both in game and artistic design. PMs and/or forum are fine. Whatever you are comfortable with sharing. I know with the heroes that SO wanted to keep them hidden until he revealed them. If you wish to do stuff like that I am fine too. However you may want to keep ls612 in the loop too (maybe not for graphics decisions though).

Reading back over what I wrote I realize I may have unintentionally insinuated that I'd want to keep him out of the loop but I didn't intend that either. I'm happy to include ls612 'in the loop'. But in so doing, I'd ask of you, ls, to please try to keep audit requests to trims rather than outright slashes. I'm willing to make some compromises - to the point that it doesn't break down other plans down the line to do so. And please be graceful if I decide to do what I have in mind anyways at first until I can see it pan out from an in play angle. Its not as if I completely discount the possibility that all of your concerns may prove rather valid. If so, I'm prepared to rollback a bit after playtesting proves those concerns a reality.

 

[ls612]

@Thunderbrd:

@ls612: I really wasn't trying to insult your intelligence but I see where that could be coming across. I'm just trying to make the point that any artist makes and that is that I can see how to balance the entire structure and can easily understand why you don't see how. But that is no reason to seek to veto anything you haven't tried in play yet.

It's tough for me to understand why you'd want to shave things down before they've even been included and tested in play, especially given how many ideas have had their chance in the spotlight before feedback can be offered. It shows an equally insulting lack of faith. Personally, I think the players that come here for multi-maps and find the combat mod as another element included will be all the more thrilled by the new strategic layers as well. I mean where's the optimism here??? The spirit of modding is exploring new ideas so how can we be so pessimistic as to the possible results of new details?

I agree 100% with the part about the strategic components of the Combat Mod, the parts of it that make stack and unit movement more useful I absolutely think will work well. And you're right, I don't know how all of these mechanics will work in-game. But I can see that adding the quantity of new detail and mechanics to a click and forget part of C2C (and that is what combat is really) is going to become bloat. That is why I don't like Dodge and Precision for one, how can those apply on a scale that units in civ have? Ditto with Knockback, that works on an individual level, but not in a large scale fight, which is what we are abstracting.

I also wasn't 100% in agreement that we should have cut down Azure's developments either. I kinda saw that as a violation of his creative rights too and a great way to insult someone who put in enormous effort to help us. We didn't even give him the chance to develop it out into what he could see it becoming before we attacked his concepts. And I won't be the next victim of that kind of pre-auditing of a crystalline vision that I'm quite certain nobody else can clearly share until experienced. I trusted Azure's material would be quite good and I never really saw much cause to cut it apart as we did.

That's how I approach everyone's additions to the mod. I myself realize I will not fully grasp how someone else's ideas will change the feel of the game in play until I play it with those modifications included. THEN I'm quite happy to point out where I see problems. I'm just asking for the same approach from my contemporaries here.

But I think we're beginning to both relax a bit more and can begin to start trying to harmonize some efforts now. There are a number of things that will take time to balance for the combat mod before it should be revealed. I want it to be fairly well developed before even including the module as a default. BUT there are some areas that are probably great for core inclusion right away, and so that we don't screw up each other but rather work together, I'd like to suggest a few areas that were designed to go onto the base unit definitions and some fairly generic skill promotion lines that we can begin focusing on working in directly without need for a modularized quarantine during development.

That's not what I meant when I was referring to MrAzure's stuff. What I was trying to say was that he had lots of good ideas, but he also had some stuff that wasn't as good. And we kept the good ideas. You have done more for Combat in Civ 4 than anyone except Dale with this, but even in such a work there are things that don't fit for one reason or another. Afforess added a Dark Ages mechanic to AND, but removed it when it was revealed that it didn't make things more fun and had some code issues as well. I added Combat Workers, but removed them after it was revealed that they didn't work too well and needed AI support. We all have ideas that aren't the best, and recognizing that is hard I'll admit. I didn't want to remove Combat Workers, as I had spent much time making them, but I didn't want to leave them in if it would harm the gameplay of C2C. Knowing how to critique your own work and accept critiques of others is a very good thing, and is constructive in the long run even if it results in the removal of stuff at first. And I'm not asking for the removal per se of parts of the Combat Mod, just that we don't implement them in the XML for the foreseeable future. Now that their memory is optimized they don't have much if any drag on performance, so leaving them in the code is perfectly fine and in fact a good idea in case they come in useful in the future.

Imagine if SO had started including Heroes one at a time... wouldn't have come in with any sense of balance. Now that its here we find various places where tweaks are necessary, but very few of us complain and most of us, like myself, love how they add to the game. I'd think there'd have been loudly emergent voices trying to make sure it never saw the light of day had he introduced the concept of them first and subjected them to editing without any play experience. That's why I want to just develop these items in a separate area before exposing them to the general core play.

Can you work with this then? Will you be willing to suspend judgment until you can experience how it plays out?

Heroes did come with some balance and AI issues at first, but they weren't as wide-reaching a project as this is. And they were OK in the end in part because they were unique (more or less) per civ.

Pointing out concerns about new mechanics is also a critical part of any software development (and that really is what we are doing in the end). Any idea that survives a harsh round of questioning and criticism will be all the better in the end, and that round of questioning and criticism will point out issues that someone else may not have though of.

@Hydro: I will definitely be wanting help and support, and I'll concede to you completely regarding artistic design (though will make some further proposals and responses on this issue still in an attempt to keep a volley going until we're both quite happy with the basic design methods we'll be employing.) I don't want you to have to DO much here but I want the application of your expansive mind throughout this process. I'd love to start a thread or two when I'm ready to start zooming in on these modular projects and I'll be looking for us to ping off each other there to make sure it all comes together. If you'd prefer to keep it in PMs so as to not spill too much to the onlooking potential players, that works well for me too. And thank you for your support.

This is concerning. Some of the greatest contributors of feedback in our neck of the forums are people who haven't modded anything, but play the mod a lot and comment regularily about their experiences, and also comment on stuff we are proposing (I'm looking at Joe and BG, but there have been others in the past). The fact that non-modders were listened to by the team was one of the things that made me like C2C in the first place, and I don't want to end that now. The openness of our development is one of the things that makes us unique. To exclude the end-users now from our development discussions would be a great mistake.

In total, when three team members have been expressing concerns both from a coding and technical standpoint and from a gameplay standpoint there is something that may need changing or revising. I understand your defensiveness and would have the same feelings if I were in your position. I also fully support the idea of developing the XML ideas for this that you have in WoC Modular format, this has been done before (nomads for one). So long as it's off be default unless/until we agree to turn it on.

@Vokarya:

Good points there. With regards to each one specifically, I'll address them in order.

1. Are you referring to the long and detailed posts Thunderbrd is making on the forums explaining the Combat Mod, or to the actual ingame help text? Becuase it's not quite clear to me, and you certainly have a point about generated text running off the screen.

2. Exactly! Just because it happened IRL or because it adds more to the mod doesn't mean that it's a good gameplay mechanic. We all need to be able to say no to more things, otherwise C2C will collapse under its own weight, and that would be bad.

3. As Thunderbrd said, no extra attack decisions are needed except possibly in how much info you need to remember and consider. I would totally agree though, anything that made combat more than a one-click thing would be a disaster.

4. Good point, although it's nigh impossible to find every bug on your own. There were however a LOT of errors with the Combat Mod that probably could have been found before being committed. I'm sorry if I made Thunderbrd feel rushed about the Combat Mod, that wasn't my intent. I didn't want it committed until it was in working condition.

 

[Vokarya]

@Vokarya:

Good points there. With regards to each one specifically, I'll address them in order.

1. Are you referring to the long and detailed posts Thunderbrd is making on the forums explaining the Combat Mod, or to the actual ingame help text? Becuase it's not quite clear to me, and you certainly have a point about generated text running off the screen.

2. Exactly! Just because it happened IRL or because it adds more to the mod doesn't mean that it's a good gameplay mechanic. We all need to be able to say no to more things, otherwise C2C will collapse under its own weight, and that would be bad.

3. As Thunderbrd said, no extra attack decisions are needed except possibly in how much info you need to remember and consider. I would totally agree though, anything that made combat more than a one-click thing would be a disaster.

4. Good point, although it's nigh impossible to find every bug on your own. There were however a LOT of errors with the Combat Mod that probably could have been found before being committed. I'm sorry if I made Thunderbrd feel rushed about the Combat Mod, that wasn't my intent. I didn't want it committed until it was in working condition.

1. Actually, I was referring to the in-game text, but it also applies to the posts on these boards. There is too much, flying too fast, to get a proper handle on it, and some of the stuff that I can understand doesn't seem to be meaningful (ex: Critical Hits). I'm really worried about trick tactics. "Oh, you didn't consider this? Lose your whole army."

2. I agree. There is a limit. I know we are a "more is more" mod, but there are some things that are starting to bother me. For example, I try and test my new buildings myself before I even propose them on the board. If I have to work through a maze of prerequisites to do anything, it's a bother. (Part of this is Worldbuilder's fault.)

3. But information overload is still a problem. If I can give an example, I have tried Realism Invictus. In RI, every land unit, for every civilization, is a Unique Unit with some minor tweaks. Maybe it's "realistic" -- for me, it's just annoying. I don't think I will ever play it again. I might load it to look for ideas, but that's it. I don't want to have to relearn the entire unit structure every time I start with a new civilization.

4. That's fair. I do think for changes this sweeping and this fundamental, they NEED to be broken down. Not everything needs to be implemented all at once.

 

[ls612]

@Vokarya:

I'd like to move this discussion to the "Concerns about the Combat Mod" thread, as this
Discussion is only tangentially related to Promotions at this point.

 

[Vokarya]

@Vokarya:

I'd like to move this discussion to the "Concerns about the Combat Mod" thread, as this
Discussion is only tangentially related to Promotions at this point.

OK. I didn't see that thread when I was responding.

 

[Thunderbrd]

So, ls, were you wanting to work those tags into the base game that I mentioned earlier?

These include:
* Minor subcombat definitions where its desperately and obviously needed such as we've already done with criminals and canines. I also would suggest, perhaps even request, that our throwing weapon units take on a fairly base unitcombat definition of their own since we're growing more comfortable defining unit combats now. They are very different in combat function being a unit that fights in the zone between archers and melee. Having those set up with their own primary Combat Class will make the job on the modular side much easier.

* The S&D modifiers? yes... go for it. I MAY want to redefine a little in this area where polearm units are concerned but for the most part its fairly independent of other areas of Combat Mod development. We also need some good ai for that but Koshling had some great ideas there and I'm really hoping it is possible for the new tags to help promote those ideas rather than make them much harder to implement.

* Stampede? Absolutely. A fairly basic addition really, unless we're talking about how it is meant to work into skill promos but I think we largely agree on most of those points and if its put into play in basic form, some of the more detailed manipulations of a unit's ability to stampede or not can be developed later or in the module. Along these lines, establishing some guidelines on what units could possibly Onslaught is a good idea to take a look at too, especially for you as you know the late tech units better than I do.

*Pursuit: would be very helpful at the moment to define base pursuit values on units. Even if I'll need to un-define any of those values on the standard units with the module, it wouldn't be any worse to do so than any of the other combat modifiers on units already. With or without the module in play, pursuit will be necessary to balance withdrawal even as it is now. I'm trying to work out a method with Koshling's advice, on how to keep the withdrawal cap if pursuit isn't in use in the mod, but if we can get it into play in the core I think it will be worth it for all players.

*Early Withdrawal - You had some great ideas and were right in tune with the concept when you made your initial proposition regarding redefining units with combat mod tags a while back. I don't see stuff that will be in the module manipulating or using this much - more of a unit base ability except that mount equips could 'modify' this feature. But promos and base unit definitions shouldn't need the module for inclusion. With Pursuit in play, it should make for some interesting interactions.

?

 

[ls612]

So, ls, were you wanting to work those tags into the base game that I mentioned earlier?


?

Yes, but not till after V27, I want to give the Subcombats and Promotion changes time to integrate and be balance tested before I continue.

 

[ls612]

Yes, but not till after V27, I want to give the Subcombats and Promotion changes time to integrate and be balance tested before I continue.

Also, relating to recent discussions and the release of V27, I think I'm going to comment out the Equipment that I've added so far while we consider how we want Equipment to work. I'm leaning more towards having Equipment only cover accessories (Bamboo Armor, Lamellar, etc) that don't necessarily upgrade into anything else or scale directly by tech level for now.

 

[strategyonly]

Yes, but not till after V27,

I dont know when v27 will come out, i need some PM's from everyone, otherwise i'll wait another 2-3 weeks??