C2C: Promotions

[Thunderbrd]

Throwing units are attacking at point blank range... you can't use the same strategies against them as you would against incoming arrows or bolts from afar. Dodging behind a rock or tree means they simply reposition themselves before they throw. Putting your shield up means they target your shins. If you react to their throw to get out of the way you have a shot at denying them the strike. That doesn't work too well against a rain of arrows where by the time you see the incoming strike it's too late BUT they aren't as carefully targeted to what you've done to prepare yourself against the attack.

Thrown weapons are also usually much heavier and deflecting them may not be as successful a strategy as it might be against a bolt or arrow.

Point being the method of tackling one is very different to the other.

 

[Harrier]

Tattoos and the Tattoo Building, when has a Tattoo made a fighting unit better?

JosEPh

The shock tactic - makes your soldiers hesitate - so you lose the advantage briefly and thus lose men.

Consider wode with the Ancient Brits versus the Romans, the Maori's (N.Z.) against the Brits (ironically). etc.

 

[LumenAngel]

Well... something should be done to make them a lot more limited I feel. They greatly imbalance the rest of the promotion scheme such that it makes it simply challenge the player to remember how to access them and ignore every other option since they are far more empowering than any other promos.

I think the one for wood ship (the Pirate one) and the one for melee are good. Strong bonus, with strong malus.
I think these special prom all have to be like this. The one for archer is far too powerful. having a lot of First strike is good (and normal for an archer), but maybe with a loss of strenght...

 

[timschuett]

Non-Sequitur, but I thought I'd post this here since it is Promotion related
For Heroic II:
I know there has been discussion and trouble fixin the GA bonus, but this might be a possible work-around that's more consistent with the current GA model.
I like the GA effect, but it needs to be constrained somehow. I've had games with 700+ turns of GA because of Heroic II. It's a good way to ease early classical civic changes, but it shouldn't ultimately last the rest of the game.
My concern is the unit shouldn't be able to give an unlimited number of GAs, so it ought to be consumed somehow when it does.

What if, upon getting Heroic II, the unit essentially became a Great person, Like a UU? You could then settle the unit as a GP (we'd need to discuss which types, but GG and Celebrity come to mind) or use them to start a GA, thus consuming the unit and increasing the number of GP you need for the next GA. Or, you can keep using them as a combat unit, but you won't pop an endless stream of compounding Golden Ages.

There is precedent for this -- at least modern. Anyone seen "Flags of our Fathers?" The guys who raised the American Flag on Mt. Suribachi were made into celebrities to help sell war bonds. I bet there's other historical examples.

I dunno if its reasonable to have a promotion make a unit change status from standard to Unique, and even if it is possible, its still not as simple as just deleting the Heroic II GA bonus. Opinions?

 

[LumenAngel]

error

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

Non-Sequitur, but I thought I'd post this here since it is Promotion related
For Heroic II:
I know there has been discussion and trouble fixin the GA bonus, but this might be a possible work-around that's more consistent with the current GA model.
I like the GA effect, but it needs to be constrained somehow. I've had games with 700+ turns of GA because of Heroic II. It's a good way to ease early classical civic changes, but it shouldn't ultimately last the rest of the game.
My concern is the unit shouldn't be able to give an unlimited number of GAs, so it ought to be consumed somehow when it does.

What if, upon getting Heroic II, the unit essentially became a Great person, Like a UU? You could then settle the unit as a GP (we'd need to discuss which types, but GG and Celebrity come to mind) or use them to start a GA, thus consuming the unit and increasing the number of GP you need for the next GA. Or, you can keep using them as a combat unit, but you won't pop an endless stream of compounding Golden Ages.

There is precedent for this -- at least modern. Anyone seen "Flags of our Fathers?" The guys who raised the American Flag on Mt. Suribachi were made into celebrities to help sell war bonds. I bet there's other historical examples.

I dunno if its reasonable to have a promotion make a unit change status from standard to Unique, and even if it is possible, its still not as simple as just deleting the Heroic II GA bonus. Opinions?

Awkward you would need two XML definitions for each hero one normal and one that can build buildings. Then when a unit gets heroic II convert them to the other type keeping all their promotions exp and level. Or change all the build buildings actions into missions and then change all units that can currently build those buildings to use the missions instead.

 

[BlueGenie]

Change it from 5% to 0.5%?

Cheers

 

[Faustmouse]

Can Promotions enable missions on units? If so, Heroic II could enable a mission: Needs to be in a city, triggers a GA, remove Heroic II and gives Heoric III. Heroic III has like +10% more str then II but not the GA effect to prevent the unit from getting Heroic II ever again.

 

[Thunderbrd]

Can Promotions enable missions on units?

Not from the promotion side but I would imagine it might be possible from the mission or event side (which you would know more about than me at the moment )

I'm sure something could be done from python on the matter along those lines.

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

Throwing units are attacking at point blank range... you can't use the same strategies against them as you would against incoming arrows or bolts from afar...

You have obviously not been in a combat situation where the archers are a meter from you.

Can Promotions enable missions on units?

Yes in that the mission can require a promotion.

On Heroic II, I posted a suggested fix but never got round to implementing it. Basically each time the unit caused a Golden Age it was less long (half) and the unit was returned to the capital and had to stay there for a few turns. This would require another "count down" promotion or script data. The former is better in the long run because it can be seen on the unit and the current script data (appears to be) is being corrupted by the latest changes to graphics processing by Koshling.

 

[Hydromancerx]

@TB

I was looking though the Dune Wars mod and they had some interesting promotions we may want to use.

- Cave Fighter I, II, III - Gives Defense Bonuses for Defending Caves.
- Water Thief I, II, III - Increases Duration Successful of Poison Water Supply Missions.
- Intrigue I, II, III - Increases Duration of Successful Spy Missions.
- Treachery I, II, II - Similar to Intrigue.
- Seduction I, II, III - Also similar but I think can improve relations with other civs.
- Conspiracy I, II, III - I am not sure but it sound like it makes enemy spy failures become worse.
- Instigation I, II, III - Increase enemy anarchy length.

We may went to make our own icon/buttons since theirs look so much different than ours.

 

[Thunderbrd]

We can use their caves for now. The rest may take some python or dll programming. If its all python the rest are just spy promos which I won't be focusing on for a long time to come but they'd fit in nicely if they can be seamlessly imported. We can worry about the art later I think - I haven't seen them though.

 

[Faustmouse]

Cave fighter should also give offensive bonus when attacking a cave.

And I'm pretty sure there already is a promo for spies that makes water poisoning worse.

 

[Harrier]

I think we should take these back to the RI implementation or at least closer to it. They are all special enhancements to normal promotions. You should make a decision that you want them and use a Great General or in some cases a Great Hunter to get them. They don't have to be national or great wonders I have shown how to make a building act like a national wonder elsewhere so you only build one of each type.

Missed this post earlier, but I think my comments may still be relevant.

The RI special promotions do need a Great General - because they are stronger than normal ones. You should implement the same technique. The player then has a choice - select improved promotion, give experiance, become a leader etc.

Also you should consider that RI has 2 types of promotions, National or World.

Every civ could build the national promotions. Still better than normal ones. But only one civ could build an even stronger world one. (like wonders)

Also a lot of these promo's became obsolete as you progressed through the eras. Especially the World ones - which were designed to fit in certain time periods.

Hopes this helps.

 

[LumenAngel]

After playing in a nearly full desert map, I think we need 2 new promotions :

Hunter of the Waste : no damage from all desert-like terrain (Hunter and Recon only)
Hunter of the Frostfell : no damage from all artic-like terrain (Hunter and Recon only)

Each are free promotion with an eponym building (req Hunting instruction building, can only be build by a desert/artic subdued animal. Cant be build in the same city as the other one)

 

[Hydromancerx]

After playing in a nearly full desert map, I think we need 2 new promotions :

Hunter of the Waste : no damage from all desert-like terrain (Hunter and Recon only)
Hunter of the Frostfell : no damage from all artic-like terrain (Hunter and Recon only)

Each are free promotion with an eponym building (req Hunting instruction building, can only be build by a desert/artic subdued animal. Cant be build in the same city as the other one)

Sadly you can only set 1 type of terrain damage immunity per promotion, which is why we have a separate promotion for each type of terrain that gives damage.

I also think your promotions would be way too powerful. You would be better off just turning terrain damage off on your settings if you want that.

 

[LumenAngel]

It's just for hunters and recon, not for true military units.
(and maybe in transhuman, one for all units)

The problem is mainle in a desert map, the best scout (before animals spawn too much) are Worker, and imminuty to desert terrain need Combat I (maybe the problem?)

 

[BlueGenie]

With no healing in damaging terrain any more it might be an idea to look over those promotions again anyway.

I could think of something like one hot and one cold "Survival" promotion that enabled a unit to "dig in and heal" in the appropriate damaging terrains, and one "Native" promotion after that that sped said healing up by the same amount the terrain damages (so that healing there or on a plain would be equally fast for that unit) but always keep that while moving along the damaging terrains the units take damage, well, except through the March promotion of course.
The names Survival and Native are arbitrary, doesn't have to be those names, just used them for examples sake.

That way there would only be 4 promotions instead of the current 6, and each of those 4 could cover 3 terrain types each. The first maybe giving defense ability, the second offense ability and movement speed, unless that was set in a third promotion, of course.

Cheers

 

[Thunderbrd]

With no healing in damaging terrain any more it might be an idea to look over those promotions again anyway.

I could think of something like one hot and one cold "Survival" promotion that enabled a unit to "dig in and heal" in the appropriate damaging terrains, and one "Native" promotion after that that sped said healing up by the same amount the terrain damages (so that healing there or on a plain would be equally fast for that unit) but always keep that while moving along the damaging terrains the units take damage, well, except through the March promotion of course.
The names Survival and Native are arbitrary, doesn't have to be those names, just used them for examples sake.

That way there would only be 4 promotions instead of the current 6, and each of those 4 could cover 3 terrain types each. The first maybe giving defense ability, the second offense ability and movement speed, unless that was set in a third promotion, of course.

Cheers

Not bad ideas - will take some programming, some stages of which are already planned that would move us closer to what you're suggesting so perhaps this would be an early way to take advantage of some of those new features planned.

 

[Hydromancerx]

It's just for hunters and recon, not for true military units.
(and maybe in transhuman, one for all units)

The problem is mainle in a desert map, the best scout (before animals spawn too much) are Worker, and imminuty to desert terrain need Combat I (maybe the problem?)

Be we already have like 2 sets of each terrain promotions. The main ones you can take like Desert Combat I, II and III plus the ones you cannot take but are given such as Desert Nomad I, II and III.