C2C: Promotions

[Dancing Hoskuld]

Elephants are not spawning now. Is it because of the Mammoth Promo?

There has been no change to the spawn XML. Promotions are not used in the spawn XML so I don't see how.

I've not done anything that would be causing that and I haven't seen anything going into the coding that would so that's very mysterious to me. It doesn't sound like something likely to be a random thing though since there's no obvious relationship between level and upgrades unless its been with us all along and I never knew about it.

Is this an intended effect from anyone?

I have not noticed this either and nothing I have done should cause it to happen.

 

[Taxman66]

Question: Does the Sophistication promos apply vs. Ruffians? I think they should; I might actually pick it then to use against an opponent overly fond of using bandits and warlords and such.

 

[JosEPh_II]

Started new game yesterday with SVN 9051 and all Trackers updated to Hunter have these varying update costs. And as far as I've seen it's only on the Hunter line. I forgot to take screen shots as Proof since my word alone is questionable at best.

JosEPh

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

1) I'll take a look at the button and see what's going on with that. Also, what programs are you using for the graphic design and adding the alpha channel?

2) That sounds a bit more valid, yes.



Usually a promo that's assigned for free from a building and is not to be taken as a selectable skill promo would be given a TECH_SPECIAL_PROMOTION TechPrereq. This is not a tech anyone can research so it becomes a barrier to selection but is ignored when being given for free from the building because the building is assumed to have the prereqs itself. The combat class prereqs and some others won't ignore tech (and if I recall, equipment promos won't either) but skill promos will when given for free. The next promo would then inherit a prerequisite of the first promotion due to the rules for skill based promotionlines always requiring the unit have all promotions in the line before it.

I am using GIMP for the graphics. I follow the instructions provided for gimp users and get the error.

So the first promotion needs the tech requirement and then should not be in a promotion line. Makes sense, with the Doctrines we have a promotion that has the special tech and the promotion line that has that promotion as its prerequisite. If I had more promotions then I would put the second and subsequent in a promotion line.

 

[Thunderbrd]

Question: Does the Sophistication promos apply vs. Ruffians? I think they should; I might actually pick it then to use against an opponent overly fond of using bandits and warlords and such.

It doesn't (at least I don't think so - will need to review to be sure) but I was considering adding the effect against them with that promo line.

Started new game yesterday with SVN 9051 and all Trackers updated to Hunter have these varying update costs. And as far as I've seen it's only on the Hunter line. I forgot to take screen shots as Proof since my word alone is questionable at best.

JosEPh

I don't doubt you, I just find it very strange since it's not intended and I'll have to duplicate and track what's causing it.

I am using GIMP for the graphics. I follow the instructions provided for gimp users and get the error.

Interesting. I'll review my process and let you know what I've been doing. I don't use GIMP except to load those files because the graphic editor I prefer can't work with that format unfortunately.

So the first promotion needs the tech requirement and then should not be in a promotion line. Makes sense, with the Doctrines we have a promotion that has the special tech and the promotion line that has that promotion as its prerequisite. If I had more promotions then I would put the second and subsequent in a promotion line.

It should still be in the promotionline. Not having it in the promoline would cause problems for the second one. Just the non-tech prereq on the first one is all you'd need to change.

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

It should still be in the promotionline. Not having it in the promoline would cause problems for the second one. Just the non-tech prereq on the first one is all you'd need to change.

OK, I misread your previous post and thought it said that the second would get the prerequisites of the first not would have the first as a prerequisite.

 

[Thunderbrd]

@DH: Sorry ... may have not worded it very well since I was rushing to post that.

@Joe: Possible theories:

1) Are you playing Size Matters? I would assume not but IF you are then there COULD be some causes coming from that - not directly related to level or number of promos but specific promo types.

2) Could it be a difference between upgrading a master hunter unit vs a normal hunter unit?
This doesn't strike me as likely due to your level of familiarity.

3) I don't offhand know of any promotions that could do this for an early hunter BUT could the ones that are cheaper to upgrade be getting a promotion (perhaps free from a city?) that is making it cheaper to upgrade them? There is a promo tag that can do this but again I don't off hand know of any promos early hunters like that can get that do use this tag.

4) Oh... wait. lol! Looking at the code directly for upgrade costs I find something VERY interesting... ROFLMAO!

	//ls612: Upgrade price is now dependent on the level of a unit
	if (iPrice != 0)
	{
		iPrice *= std::max(100, (100 + (5 * ((getLevel()) - 4))));
		iPrice /= 100;
	}

'nuff said. That does explain what you were experiencing and why none of us knew anything about it.

As to whether its a good or bad idea I think is debatable. How ironic is it that at this point I find myself thinking ls612 had a good idea here? lol. If you want that to be an option I'd be happy to make an adjustment there. Actually... I don't care even if you demand its removal as long as nobody else cares... I'd do that for you. But I do kinda see the point in this. I mean, it makes some sense to me that more experienced units take longer to train and thus cost a little more to.

Also, to assuage a concern you've been voicing...

Analysis of the code that determines the cost of the upgrade has revealed 2 interesting global defines that can easily be adjusted to adapt if things really get too far out of whack with increased production costs for units:

	<Define>
		<DefineName>BASE_UNIT_UPGRADE_COST</DefineName>
		<iDefineIntVal>20</iDefineIntVal>
	</Define>

And

	<Define>
		<DefineName>UNIT_UPGRADE_COST_PER_PRODUCTION</DefineName>
		<iDefineIntVal>200</iDefineIntVal>
	</Define>

The basic math for this is:

The base price is 20. (BASE_UNIT_UPGRADE_COST)

The modifier for the price is 'the production cost of the unit it will be after upgrade' minus 'the production cost of the unit it is now'. That modifier is then multiplied by the UNIT_UPGRADE_COST_PER_PRODUCTION then divided by 100.

The modifier at this point is 200% of the difference in production costs between unit A and unit B.

The Modifier is then added into the base price. For AI's its then modified further by difficulty level settings, making it cheaper for them if the handicap for the main player is higher. (I THINK it must be player 0 that sets the 'game's' difficulty setting but it could be the highest of all human players... would need to follow how that gets setup to be sure.)

Basically this gives you the full formula and the tags to adjust it. IMO, this begins to explain why gold costs for upgrades are so dramatically impacted by their production costs. Maybe 150% rather than 200% would be a better modifier? If you take your cities and build gold you can get between 30% and 100% of the city's production converted to gold every round.

Thus many cities can combine to swell the treasury for a massive upgrade event but only one city is usually qualified to train the new replacement units if you want them to be of any quality. And often newly trained units will have more XP than earlier trained one. Given all considerations, one should probably only upgrade units that have seen some serious action while just retraining ones that haven't unless that gets in the way of other more important production goals, which it often does for the city to train new units. Therefore, upgrading with gold is probably a good idea for the majority of cases - but yeah, expensive and getting moreso with more reasonable production costs. If it's too severe, we can back down on that modifier value a bit to address the issue.


Then again, in discussion of goals... it would be nice, imo, if a treasury was rarely capable of just immediately adapting to upgrading all units at all times. Having to make the choice whether to slow down on your research a bit to collect more gold for upgrading has been an enjoyable 'interesting decision' point since Vanilla. This slowdown can be achieved either from taking the slider down or from taking completed cities sitting around building research and converting them to building gold. Either way, it forces some decision making, which is not a bad thing for game design is it? As for the AI, they tend to get such a discount on unit upgrades if you're playing a tougher difficulty level that they usually adapt pretty well due to the reduced cost.

Interesting analysis... back when playing vanilla I often wondered how the AI could upgrade so many of its units as soon as they get a tech that allows the upgrade. Here in C2C it's been sometimes they can right away and sometimes they can't.

Besides... if you're not using gold for keeping a few negative events at bay and for upgrading troops, what are you using gold for? Isn't unit upgrading usually the primary use for gold being in the treasury at all?

 

[JosEPh_II]

I mean, it makes some sense to me that more experienced units take longer to train and thus cost a little more to.

That is totally backwards. A highly experienced unit takes less time to train Not more. A new recruit takes much more training. This needs to be flipped. High XP units should upgrade cheaper and low XP take the "norm" of what we are supposed to have now.

And the notion that only 1 city is qualified "only one city is usually qualified to train the new replacement units if you want them to be of any quality" is only true early, in fact very early in the game. After Ancient era this no long holds water, especially in my games. Hence the gripe about Upgrade costs being over the moon.

So yes I would say ls612's little coding gem needs some scrutiny.

As for the last statement, that depends upon the stage of the game. And for me if you get to medieval era and your still struggling to maintain a reasonable treasury then is too tight. Otherwise you should have plenty of Gold for Unit upgrades in subsequent later eras. I can survive the early gold shortages by changing my difficulty level down a notch. It is the AI that Needs the flow going to be an effective and strong opponent. Players can adjust easier, albeit with a hit to their Pride by lowering the Difficulty level or vice versa. Hence my objections when players complain about too much . If they have too much use the Hammer option in the build que and convert the to production. Or do I have that backwards too without having the game right in front of me?

JosEPh

 

[tmv]

That depends. It's certainly fairly easy for Elite Light Swordsmen to upgrade to Swordsmen, but I think there would be little advantage for Elite medieval troops when given guns.

Perhaps the cost could be increased when changing classes (when the set of classes changes), and even then without looking too much at experience?

 

[Harrier]

That is totally backwards. A highly experienced unit takes less time to train Not more. A new recruit takes much more training. This needs to be flipped. High XP units should upgrade cheaper and low XP take the "norm" of what we are supposed to have now.
JosEPh

I agree with JosEPh_II about this. The less experienced units would need more additional training to get them on a par with the more experienced units. So less experience means greater cost to upgrade.

Simples.

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

Change of equipment should also increase cost to upgrade. Although going from crossbow to guns is not so different; and going from bows to crossbows would require much less training, after all it was because they were so much easier to use that they caught on.

 

[Thunderbrd]

I can see valid arguments on both sides of the fence.

On the flip side and as much for the sake of playing devil's advocate mainly, a rebuttal to the statements made here: A more skilled warrior is more practiced with the procedures he's familiar with. Practice makes permanent and it is harder to unlearn some things so that he can then learn new ways. Less experienced units wouldn't be so 'established' with their methods and so would be more adaptable... doesn't mean they'll be as good afterwards though since the more skilled fighters would demand to still be able to maintain the same degree of proficiency and would have to be pushed hard to get to the same 'level' as they were. Thus longer training and more investment into it.

Now, that said, this doesn't invalidate the opposing arguments. Personally I think the perception could be either way for a player and no matter which way it's established we'll get complaints that it's the wrong way around. Therefore, perhaps we should just remove the adjustment entirely.

tmv and DH are correct too, but this could also be said to have been factored in to the cost with the difference in production being the basis for the cost of upgrading. Any further adjustment to that would introduce what could really be a needlessly complex evaluation process or additional XML for what I think we can agree is a fairly minor issue that may not be worth the cost in memory to store that xml in the game.

 

[Harrier]

I can see valid arguments on both sides of the fence.

Therefore, perhaps we should just remove the adjustment entirely.

I agree. It simplifies things (KISS principle) and would avoid repetitive posts about - "why the different upgrade costs?".

 

[Thunderbrd]

As for the last statement, that depends upon the stage of the game. And for me if you get to medieval era and your still struggling to maintain a reasonable treasury then is too tight. Otherwise you should have plenty of Gold for Unit upgrades in subsequent later eras. I can survive the early gold shortages by changing my difficulty level down a notch. It is the AI that Needs the flow going to be an effective and strong opponent. Players can adjust easier, albeit with a hit to their Pride by lowering the Difficulty level or vice versa. Hence my objections when players complain about too much . If they have too much use the Hammer option in the build que and convert the to production. Or do I have that backwards too without having the game right in front of me?

You can take production and turn it to gold and you can hurry constructions and training with gold but you can't straight convert incoming gold to production.

It's interesting that you switch the difficulty rather than the slider, or am I misunderstanding and it's when you hit 0% on the slider and continue to lose gold and are about to run out that you would take this step? I mean... is this the point at which you feel you're struggling or is it at the point that you simply have to step down at all from 100% research? (honest questions... not arguments to make a point)

Ironically, the higher your difficulty level, the easier the AI has it on upgrade costs. So by stepping down in difficulty, you are also by default stepping UP the difficulty for the AI.

The AI can survive and thrive and manage its gold so long as it doesn't NEED to use the gold building process in a city to do it. That's really the point at which the AI begins to be incapable of addressing its gold problems in any way near what a player can achieve with more clever selection of when and where to convert production to gold, particularly if buildings with any perceived value can still be built or minimum military NEEDS must still be addressed. This is really the ultimate weakness there for them. So when players need to build gold to keep their budget afloat at 0% research, while they still have buildings to build and (if they were an AI) a perceived need for more units, that's the point at which you can know, the AI would be crashing here and going into strike and getting stuck in a loop where they keep trying to accomodate for their military needs (in a panic to do so) but are at the same time losing the units they already have.

So yes, it's easy to have a major problem with making gold too challenging. But at the point that you have excess gold in the treasury after upgrading all units (after a major upgrade wave) and you've not had to reduce the slider to accomplish it, we are at the point where it's become a non issue. Because what would you do with all that excess gold anyhow at that point?

EDIT: Also... bear in mind that although you may be lowering your difficulty from a particular level, Noble is the difficulty that the AI is always playing at (in some cases adjusted further by your difficulty setting, usually making things easier for them still.) So if you're not having to go beneath Noble, and not having to play intricate games of building gold in cities to stay afloat at that point, then you can rest assured the AI is probably doing fine. The one thing that does challenge the AI currently in relation to the player is a tendency to overbuild military. But at least the property control units are being built to a very refined point now so really they should be able to manage things better there than the player now since they have full and immediately reactive oversight on those values to keep them in check. The one side of that coin they may need to consider that they don't now is if and when to disband some of those prop control units. Not sure if this will become an issue or not. If they generally only ever need to 'add' units to address properties then this will never be a factor. Even much later in the game though, having a fair margin of prop ctrl units could still be beneficial if a situation comes up to try to suddenly challenge them on these factors, like if you send in mobs of powerfully crime spreading units into their cities.

 

[Thunderbrd]

@Joe: another observation that supports your cause... You made a good statement saying that the beginning of the game doesn't have much 'wiggle room' to keep players in the gold stress optimal zone. I do agree strongly with that.

Therefore, as I look at the upgrade calculation, the BASE cost has become a bit of a problem for the earliest units, making them much more comparatively expensive than later upgrades. By reducing that cost down to 5 or even 0, we rely entirely upon the production cost difference and the modifier to that in the calculation and thus we don't set the platform base so high and you'll see earlier units having a much more era-appropriate upgrade expense.

Thus in a nutshell, I'm adjusting:

	<Define>
		<DefineName>BASE_UNIT_UPGRADE_COST</DefineName>
		<iDefineIntVal>20</iDefineIntVal>
	</Define>

to

	<Define>
		<DefineName>BASE_UNIT_UPGRADE_COST</DefineName>
		<iDefineIntVal>5</iDefineIntVal>
	</Define>

for now and if early upgrades seem a little too expensive for the era still then we can further adjust down to as far as 0.

I'm also going to take the second value and reduce it to 150 in preparation for far more units being reviewed at some point (hopefully somewhat soon.)

 

[JosEPh_II]

It's interesting that you switch the difficulty rather than the slider, or am I misunderstanding and it's when you hit 0% on the slider and continue to lose gold and are about to run out that you would take this step? I mean... is this the point at which you feel you're struggling or is it at the point that you simply have to step down at all from 100% research? (honest questions... not arguments to make a point)

You misunderstood me there. I don't use the flex Difficulty option. I just, on this new game, backed down 1 level from Immortal (previous 3 games) back to Emperor.

And so when my research level hits 0%, then if I'm not at war, I start pruning units for the meager gold they get. Otherwise if I'm at war, and I always get DoW'ed eventually, I set a couple of middle cities to Wealth. But when the producing buildings have all been built and you still need more units to fight off the 20 stacks of 40 units it can still get tight. (I started this game with a lower stack limit than the 40 I had been using. No way with the way the AI was building Siege Rams and Onager stacks would I ever put the stack limit back to it's default setting.

And I know what difficulty level the AI plays at. At one time everyone thought it was Noble till I pointed out to ls612 that it was actually between Prince and Monarch. Then he made some adjustments and brought the AI back to Noble. That was several years back.

A most of what you are saying I've already taken into account. And just from the responses here in this thread so far you can get a glimpse at how varied the play can be. All because of what Options you set the game up with and how you set BUG.

You also asked early was I using SM. No I'm not, Nor any CM Option. And like DH I don't use any of the Trait options with the rare exception of using ls612's Focused trait. And that all by it's self. Traits alone can cause AI or Player hardships, among other things. There are many variables to consider before whacking or liberating the amount of in the Mod. And one of the worst that distorts is the game lengths. If I could stand the god awful crawling pace of Eternity I would Always have an empire literally swimming in gold. (this new game is on Epic this time instead of Normal). So if an Eternity player comes in here and complains about Too Much , They Seriously need to go to a faster speed. And I don't want to get back on the Eternity soapbox again! Worst Gamespeed Ever imagined for this mod! (I'm stepping down now )

EDIT: Tried to post this last night but the internet went south on me right before I hit Post Quick Reply.

It will be interesting to see your changes. I'll probably need to start a new game again though, we will see.

JosEPh

 

[Thunderbrd]

Ok. Good for some clarification.

 

[Faustmouse]

Joe, I think you tend to over expand and have to many cities. And THAT could be a problem (as it should!)
Try founding 1 or 2 cities fewer than you would normally do and see gold is still a problem. Don't blame gamespeed or anything else; it's mostly about number of cities.

 

[JosEPh_II]

Joe, I think you tend to over expand and have to many cities. And THAT could be a problem (as it should!)
Try founding 1 or 2 cities fewer than you would normally do and see gold is still a problem. Don't blame gamespeed or anything else; it's mostly about number of cities.

While I am an avowed and eXperienced eXpansionist I also know how to keep my treasury in balance. And when it can sustain the addition of a new city. The problem is much More than Number of cities Faustmouse, especially since the problem's roots are in the Preh era Before Tribalism and even having a 2nd city. Listen more and keep in context.

And I lay the blame where it should be laid. I've been at this a long time and I'm nowhere near being a novice. I also know which Options are trouble makers for the Mod, and for general BtS play.

Perhaps you should ask T-Brd or koshling about my level of play and game skills. They both have 1st hand eXperience with my play from the Pbem games.

JosEPh

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

I am about to start the review of Hunter promotions and thought of something that would possibly make things easier all round. It would definitely allow us to make the pedia promotions tree readable.

1. Replace the Combat 1 promotion with DOMAIN specific promotions. They would basically be graphical only. At first they would only improve the pedia but I expect them to be useful in all sorts of things later.
   
   I am not sure how this would fit in with promotion lines as I would assume Combat 2 would still be available to all domain units rather than having a separate line for each. Except of course where there is something special we want to do with combat in those domains
   
   LAND, SEA, HOVER, AIR to start with. I am sure Pepper2000 can expand on this for space.
   
   
2. Change the prerequisite promotions OR requirements from 1 and 2 to a list like everywhere else. Unfortunately this requires TB to do it and he is snowed under at the moment.
   
   One thing I was thinking of doing that would require this is for Hunters and Recon units to require Combat 1 (land) or Hunter I or the to be defined Recon I or the initial military mini promotion to access the terrain combat and movement promotions.