C2C: Promotions

[Thunderbrd]

Well... I've given you methods to work with. See what you can do! I'm quite interested. I can try to update that tag for you this weekend.

 

[charlesb96]

There is one problem with Great General Field Commanders that needs to be fixed first. Which GG is used for the bonus. Right now, if 2 GG are in one stack, least experienced one is used first for the bonus. If one is in the attacking stack and another is near by, in command range, THAT one is used for the bonus, not the one in the attacking stack.

If there are going to be specialized Generals, you have to be able to choose which one you want to aid the attack or defense. Before combat you should be given a list of all GG in range, and you pick the one you want.

This will take some coding work, and I am not a programer.

 

[Thunderbrd]

There is one problem with Great General Field Commanders that needs to be fixed first. Which GG is used for the bonus. Right now, if 2 GG are in one stack, least experienced one is used first for the bonus. If one is in the attacking stack and another is near by, in command range, THAT one is used for the bonus, not the one in the attacking stack.

If there are going to be specialized Generals, you have to be able to choose which one you want to aid the attack or defense. Before combat you should be given a list of all GG in range, and you pick the one you want.

This will take some coding work, and I am not a programer.

Um... yeah, makes sense but while it could be done it would be a very major project. The code for determining the Commander is highly complex as it is and while it may not be working optimally, I'd not wish to tamper with it as it does work. Certainly not to this extent, and certainly no time in the near future. I'd say one would simply have to be selective about where they place their commanders if they wish this sort of micromanaging control.

 

[Koshling]

There is one problem with Great General Field Commanders that needs to be fixed first. Which GG is used for the bonus. Right now, if 2 GG are in one stack, least experienced one is used first for the bonus. If one is in the attacking stack and another is near by, in command range, THAT one is used for the bonus, not the one in the attacking stack.

If there are going to be specialized Generals, you have to be able to choose which one you want to aid the attack or defense. Before combat you should be given a list of all GG in range, and you pick the one you want.

This will take some coding work, and I am not a programer.

This is not correct (or if it is it's a bug, but I doesn't match what the code says).

What happens is as follows:

1) If the unit performing an action that might benefit from a commander has already used a commander in the same turn, and that commander still has command points, and is still in range it gets used again.

2) Otherwise it searches all commanders owned by that player and takes the one with the MOST experience that is both in range and still has command points available

Of course, this doesn't change the fundamental point the OP makes, that if they get specialized you have a greater need to be able to choose (that's true even now, because the 2 in-range commanders might have taken quite different promotion paths even today)

 

[Thunderbrd]

Yes, each General would be for a few general promotions, and then level 5 or 6 have to decide what type he is going to be. After all Patton would have been terrible at Midway, and Admiral Farragut would have lost Gettysburg big time.

Now keep in mind that we have planned to have Admirals as distinctly different from Generals.

But outside of that, I AM very curious to see what categories you'd define for Commanders. (I'm working on my Combat Class spreadsheet now so this is quite pertinent.)

 

[Hydromancerx]

Now keep in mind that we have planned to have Admirals as distinctly different from Generals.

I was thinking about this. And I was wondering what flying units should be given a General or Admiral or something different. Likewise would spaceships get Admirals?

Because eventually there will be 4 domains; Land, Sea, Air and Space.

 

[DRJ]

Now keep in mind that we have planned to have Admirals as distinctly different from Generals.

Could you please point me to the post where you wrote stuff about them?

Without knowing what that would be I'd say
Land, Sea, Air, Space as Hydro suggested
could all have the common first strike, strength, withdraw etc type promotions for generals but they would only work for their branch, a land general can't be attached to sea units etc.

Same goes for great (naval) commanders: for example, their promotions wouldn't benefits tanks near them but only ships
(btw. each ship should have the possibility of one transport capacity for a great naval commander, imo - and maybe each land and air unit as well -
or being able to load/carry a commander would be a promotion itself which only elite units would be capeable of... this would also solve the "Great Commander-can-move-only-2-tiles-while-his-Elite Horsemen-can-move-3-tiles"-annoyance slowing advances often down: he could be loaded upon his fastest riders back and be carried with them, which seems natural to me - for example, tank generals also could appear at the most forward front if they wanted to)


The question would be how the spawn of the different types of generals would be managed. I was thinking that maybe, depending on what types you build the what-type-of-general-pops-out-chance could be influenced, much like GP birth chances are set by what specialists you employ.

So if you built like 5 galleys and 3 archers during the period the general is generated by xp gains the chances to get a great admiral would be 5:3.

Later, The pool would change and also have air commanders and space commanders in it - where I would say the last two should get a bonus for their branch, let 1 fighter or 1 spacecraft count as 2 or 3 units, because they are more expansive (maybe ships 1,5 as well)

So for example someone built 3 mech inf, 2 battleships and 2 planes during the general pool filled, it would be 3 : 2/2x1,5 : 2x2/2x3.
or in numbers: land general: 33,3%/25% admiral 22,2%/25% air commander 44,4%/50%

Or another way of dealing with this perhaps It could be also made that the category of generals that is not yet present or underrepresented would spawn with a higher chance.

Of course it shouldn't be that a admiral spawns without having built any ships yet, thats why I imagined the above.

 

[Thunderbrd]

I was thinking about this. And I was wondering what flying units should be given a General or Admiral or something different. Likewise would spaceships get Admirals?

Because eventually there will be 4 domains; Land, Sea, Air and Space.

Sounds good to me. Air units will be needing some more ways to gain XP (another task on the agenda anyhow) to let them gain enough to ever birth such a Great Commander for them (btw, what would you call these?) but yeah, this layout is a good idea. Additionally, we were looking at a fifth which wasn't so domain driven but function driven for explorer units (hunters and scouts).

Could you please point me to the post where you wrote stuff about them?

Without knowing what that would be I'd say
Land, Sea, Air, Space as Hydro suggested
could all have the common first strike, strength, withdraw etc type promotions for generals but they would only work for their branch, a land general can't be attached to sea units etc.

Same goes for great (naval) commanders: for example, their promotions wouldn't benefits tanks near them but only ships
(btw. each ship should have the possibility of one transport capacity for a great naval commander, imo - and maybe each land and air unit as well -
or being able to load/carry a commander would be a promotion itself which only elite units would be capeable of... this would also solve the "Great Commander-can-move-only-2-tiles-while-his-Elite Horsemen-can-move-3-tiles"-annoyance slowing advances often down: he could be loaded upon his fastest riders back and be carried with them, which seems natural to me - for example, tank generals also could appear at the most forward front if they wanted to)


The question would be how the spawn of the different types of generals would be managed. I was thinking that maybe, depending on what types you build the what-type-of-general-pops-out-chance could be influenced, much like GP birth chances are set by what specialists you employ.

So if you built like 5 galleys and 3 archers during the period the general is generated by xp gains the chances to get a great admiral would be 5:3.

Later, The pool would change and also have air commanders and space commanders in it - where I would say the last two should get a bonus for their branch, let 1 fighter or 1 spacecraft count as 2 or 3 units, because they are more expansive (maybe ships 1,5 as well)

So for example someone built 3 mech inf, 2 battleships and 2 planes during the general pool filled, it would be 3 : 2/2x1,5 : 2x2/2x3.
or in numbers: land general: 33,3%/25% admiral 22,2%/25% air commander 44,4%/50%

Or another way of dealing with this perhaps It could be also made that the category of generals that is not yet present or underrepresented would spawn with a higher chance.

Of course it shouldn't be that a admiral spawns without having built any ships yet, thats why I imagined the above.

We currently gain GG pts by combat (for the most part) and I wouldn't want that to change. Basically, the Great Hunter (maybe Great Explorer would be a more generic term) would gain pts from XP from Animal kills (and possibly withdrawals.) The General we know and love now would gain pts from Land Domain units gaining XP in all other manners. The Admiral (Sea) would gain pts from all Naval units gaining XP. The Air and Space versions would follow suit.

Then we're still discussing how this will work on the progress bar. I believe the easiest method we came up with was to not have them come up with a % comparison to determine which type was birthed mechanism like the GP bar uses, but rather to each have their own accumulating pool. Whenever a Great Military type is born, the threshold to gain the next goes up just as it does now but does so for every type, even though they maintain their own pools and the points accumulated into those pools don't reset whenever a GM is born. We use the same progress bar but only show the one that's closest to being birthed.

Example
So if you gain your first GM at 50 and you've earned 30 towards a General and you just birthed a Great Explorer, then the General keeps its 30 but now needs to get to something like 125 before you can get one. The Explorer pts are down to 0 but since you've got a lot more hunting than war in the beginning, you may still see the Explorer beat the General to the 125 before it gets there, unless you start going after Barb cities popping up and stay ahead of the animal kill count.

Once the Explorer pts get ahead (assumably) of the General pts, the progress bar, which was showing the General's progress, will switch over to showing the Explorer progress. We figured a mouseover hover popup panel would let you know the progress of all types if you, the player cared to know.

 

[charlesb96]

I was thinking more along the lines that a GG is nothing till you decide, with the promotions, if he is a General, an Admiral or an Air Marshall. If I have enough Admirals, I want to be able to go for an Air Marshall, not have a chance of getting another Admiral.

Infantry generals
Cavalry (and armored) generals
city takers and city defender generals.
Surface Admirals
Carrier Admirals
Submarine Admirals
Air Marshall Fighter
Air Marshall Bomber
Arctic Commander
Desert Commander
Space Admirals
Siege Generals

 

[God-Emperor]

Picking the type you get doesn't really make any sense. If you fight only land battles, why should you get a Great Admiral? You should get a Great General. If you want a Great Admiral, fight more sea battles.

You only learn to fight sea battles better by fighting sea battles. Great Admirals don't pop up out of nowhere. Likewise for all the other types. This is why a separate pool for each makes sense.

 

[DRJ]

I agree.

Although we should have some consistency about other types of GP then as well, imo Can't all of them have their own pools as well? Just sayin'...

And speaking thereof, shouldn't we also have negative modifiers to the pools?
Slaves, unhappiness, unhealthiness, crime levels could also nag on your pools.
You could argue that a lot of players wouldn't like it -- but we could have certain tresholds acting like storage pit, granary etc just for GP-Points which would function as barriers which the GP points could not fall back again upon construction.

(example: you had a good time in your city employing 2 priests for quite some time having 75% of GP-points ready for next GP - but then your city grows to size 12 and you forget to employ townwatchmen, to build temples and aqueducts, suddenly gangs roam the streets.
Potential Great People tend to leave your city (thus -GP points/turn) but thankfully your priests can seek shelter in their priests seminary you built for them before. Although you lose some GP-Points per turn the seminary prevents the Great Priests points to drop below 50% of the bar.)

Regarding military:
Lets say losing a fight would cause you to lose one point towards a certain type of general as well.
But a building like hunting instruction would cap the minimum (Great Hunter points) to fall back to at 33%...
Master Hunter: 50% etc...

Also, I know there is a wonder (I think) that effects your GG points once you lose a fight against the nation that built this wonder (Archimedes Cylinder?). How is this going to be solved with the new mechanisms?

 

[strategyonly]

Picking the type you get doesn't really make any sense. If you fight only land battles, why should you get a Great Admiral? You should get a Great General. If you want a Great Admiral, fight more sea battles.

You only learn to fight sea battles better by fighting sea battles. Great Admirals don't pop up out of nowhere. Likewise for all the other types. This is why a separate pool for each makes sense.

I agree also. Like i had in my table, Navies, Armies, Air Forces
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=12466361&postcount=1056

 

[Thunderbrd]

I was thinking more along the lines that a GG is nothing till you decide, with the promotions, if he is a General, an Admiral or an Air Marshall. If I have enough Admirals, I want to be able to go for an Air Marshall, not have a chance of getting another Admiral.

Infantry generals
Cavalry (and armored) generals
city takers and city defender generals.
Surface Admirals
Carrier Admirals
Submarine Admirals
Air Marshall Fighter
Air Marshall Bomber
Arctic Commander
Desert Commander
Space Admirals
Siege Generals

We can further allow GG types to subdivide with SubCombats and by the promotions they take that route them down differing functional paths. But I still feel that the 5 types:

• General (Land)
• Admiral (Sea)
• Admiral (Space)
• Captain (Air)
• Explorer (Hunter/Scout)

would be our 'units' and would have their own pools. But from there, each, when turned into Great Commanders, can differ in how they develop and be given opportunities to specialize and differentiate.

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

I agree.

Although we should have some consistency about other types of GP then as well, imo Can't all of them have their own pools as well? Just sayin'...

What about the buildings that just give general great people points not points towards a particular great person type?

 

[God-Emperor]

Although we should have some consistency about other types of GP then as well, imo Can't all of them have their own pools as well? Just sayin'...

It doesn't seem necessary. Great General points are on a per player basis. Other Great Person points are already multiple pools on a per-city basis. You can, to some degree anyway, specialize them yourself on a per city basis by controlling what specialists you have assigned and what wonders you build in each city.

 

[Thunderbrd]

It doesn't seem necessary. Great General points are on a per player basis. Other Great Person points are already multiple pools on a per-city basis. You can, to some degree anyway, specialize them yourself on a per city basis by controlling what specialists you have assigned and what wonders you build in each city.

It's part of the enjoyable civil strategic side of the game too imo. Trying to get your cities to birth the specific GP types you seek is a challenge and requires sacrifices (sometimes great sacrifices) to accomplish.

 

[Thunderbrd]

How about for Great Generals? Can they be given the arctic or desert promo and have it affect the entire stack to keep everyone from taking damage?

GCs don't get any of the regular promotions anyway, so making the tag work won't help unless you also add a bunch of extra promotions for GCs. In particular they don't get the normal 'combat' line, and since lots of things are dependent on combat 1 they cannot get those. Just giving them access o the regular lines is also not the answer, since having those apply in a GC-manner would rapidly become OP.

I updated the tag so, as Koshling points out, NEW commander promos may be created with the ignoreterraindamage tag - doesn't work to simply apply to them the promos already using those tags. But this does help to enable this added design goal of charlesb96. It was a minor thing to address and I'd like to see what he does with it.

So Charles... you're up to bat buddy

 

[charlesb96]

Where is the updated tag, or what does it look like? I want to make special promo's for the GG's, not just add the tag to an existing promo and make that eligible for the GG. All these extra promos will be just for the GG's

I also need some Icons, buttons for 2 lines of promos I suggested.
See post #1039 page 52, this thread for file.

 

[Thunderbrd]

It's the same tag as a normal promo would use only now it will be possible to make it a commander applicable tag, which it will be if used on a properly established commander promo.

As for the icons, I'll take a look and see if I can't get something done up for you this week. Should be easy enough. I'll just put them in the Thunderbrd.FPK and let you know how to reference them.

 

[Taxman66]

How about a GG promotion that allows the GG to keep pace with other units? i.e. as long as any other unit stacked with the GG can move the GG can move with said unit. Thus speed/commando/Terrain movement bonus etc... units can't outrun the GG.