C2C - Units

[Thunderbrd]

I'm looking at some healing factors, including a planned regeneration system during battle for truly futuristic units mostly.

One thing I'm considering on this page is adding bAlwaysHeals to the unit xml so that we don't have to assign it through the March promotion for free.

In so doing, and looking at 'why' units do and don't get access to being able to heal while on the move and even having been engaged in combat during the round, I have to ask y'all for your opinions on something.

In vanilla, Mech Infantry get this ability. I guess the thinking was that it gives them something tanks don't have, or that they imagine that the soldiers don't have to 'heal' as much since they are being transported within the vehicles (though what about damage to the vehicles themselves?) My point here is that I'm not sure I've ever felt they really deserve this ability. Maybe in Vanilla, sure it was something they needed to have that 'power', but was it really a rational assignment for them to have?

I would tend to think of it as a sign of elevated ability to heal while on the move, ignoring the effect of rigorous activities on keeping one from being able to heal.

Mech infantry are not going to be the defensive infantryman unit they were in vanilla. Rather, they will be a transport unit that moves the foot soldiers from point a to b in a protected shell that usually has a better move rate. (And yes, I do intend to teach the AI to work with that better.) My point is that the actual foot soldiers are being differentiated some from the vehicles that move them around. So if the ability is due to the ability to relax while being on the move for the humans within, then that will already be reflected in the fact that they CAN skip and heal while being transported, but the vehicles themselves and their direct operators? I don't see why they would necessarily have this ability as well.

I don't want to remove it and have folks get up in arms about a vanilla standard going away so figured I'd ask for feedback here first. (I might regret it but I suppose better to now while we can talk it out before the design is locked in.)

 

[JosEPh_II]

Mech infantry are not going to be the defensive infantryman unit they were in vanilla. Rather, they will be a transport unit that moves the foot soldiers from point a to b in a protected shell that usually has a better move rate.

That is not what Mech Infantry is. At least not what it was when I served in the Army. While Mech is a Rapid deployment unit the vehicles themselves have both offensive and defensive capabilities Besides being the means to move the personnel (Individual infantry) to the area needed quickly.

Your suggestion seems to be removing this from the vehicles to being Only transport.

 

[Thunderbrd]

That is not what Mech Infantry is. At least not what it was when I served in the Army. While Mech is a Rapid deployment unit the vehicles themselves have both offensive and defensive capabilities Besides being the means to move the personnel (Individual infantry) to the area needed quickly.

Your suggestion seems to be removing this from the vehicles to being Only transport.

No, Mech Infantry, being considered the vehicles but also the soldiers that are permanently part of the mobile fighting force,such as the turret operators and so on, still fight effectively, but their primary role is to transport the foot soldiers. As a fighting force they won't be muted at all, just perhaps a little different in function. As you said, they are both transports and effective fighters, but there still has become a need in C2C to have the unmech'd foot soldiers still represented and continue to upgrade into the far future.

Mech Infantry will be able to defend and make use of defensive bonuses, including fortification. One of the key things they will have is an improved ability to fight along routes when attacking, as well as receiving the amphibious ability, which standard foot soldiers do not (though Marines do and in a naval city assault are likely a bit better than the mech infantry.)

One of the benefits of foot soldiers would be a more powerful form of fortification, making them more common to defend first if they are entrenched and not being transported in the stack. The Mech infantry come along in the upgrade chain between a few foot soldier types so they are more base powerful at first but by the time they are replaced, the foot soldiers have the effective edge in raw power.

Humvees, on the wheeled combat vehicle line, are similar but are for transporting smaller groups like generals and spies and such and they aren't AS good along routes but are probably a bit better offroad. They are actually a little stronger BUT they don't have as many first strikes so it's a bit of a tossup if the two went to battle with each other.

There's probably also going to be some armor differences here that have yet to be planned out thought that may be an option based effect.

The main question on my mind at the moment is whether or not they really have justification to get the ability to heal on the move. At this time, ALL the armored personnel carrier line has that ability and I'm not too sure it's all that justified. I'm also not convinced it isn't... I'm looking for some community feedback to help me decide.

 

[JosEPh_II]

The main question on my mind at the moment is whether or not they really have justification to get the ability to heal on the move. At this time, ALL the armored personnel carrier line has that ability and I'm not too sure it's all that justified. I'm also not convinced it isn't... I'm looking for some community feedback to help me decide.

Well with all your promotions you should be able to assign some to deal with this issue wouldn't you think?

 

[Thunderbrd]

Well with all your promotions you should be able to assign some to deal with this issue wouldn't you think?

I'm looking to REMOVE the ability from these units. I just don't want to offend anyone in doing so.

Apparently few read what I post here anymore or most just don't have an opinion.

 

[JosEPh_II]

I'm looking to REMOVE the ability from these units. I just don't want to offend anyone in doing so.

Apparently few read what I post here anymore or most just don't have an opinion.

Discord accounts for a lot of that. And most of those on Discord do not post here. There is a gap a divide between the 2 forums, if you want to call Discord a forum.

 

[Thunderbrd]

Discord accounts for a lot of that. And most of those on Discord do not post here. There is a gap a divide between the 2 forums, if you want to call Discord a forum.

You make a good point that I need to point out there that I'm asking a question here.

I take it since you haven't answered my question that you aren't all that concerned about whether they keep the ability to heal on the move or not huh?

 

[MightyToad]

I think you have a solution looking for a problem. Mechanized infantry aren't just the vehicles or men, but both. The reason they heal is because an infantry unit has medics. The reason they heal on the move is because they have all terrain, armored, heavily armed ambulances. So, if any unit has healing on the move it would be mech infantry.

You're not talking about nerfing mech infantry. You want to replace it with land transports, and foot soldiers. I don't have a commemt on that.

 

[JosEPh_II]

I think you have a solution looking for a problem. Mechanized infantry aren't just the vehicles or men, but both. The reason they heal is because an infantry unit has medics. The reason they heal on the move is because they have all terrain, armored, heavily armed ambulances. So, if any unit has healing on the move it would be mech infantry.

You're not talking about nerfing mech infantry. You want to replace it with land transports, and foot soldiers. I don't have a commemt on that.

Agree 100%.

 

[Thunderbrd]

I think you have a solution looking for a problem. Mechanized infantry aren't just the vehicles or men, but both. The reason they heal is because an infantry unit has medics. The reason they heal on the move is because they have all terrain, armored, heavily armed ambulances. So, if any unit has healing on the move it would be mech infantry.

You're not talking about nerfing mech infantry. You want to replace it with land transports, and foot soldiers. I don't have a commemt on that.

You're right. I AM splitting up most of the soldiers assumed to be part of the mech infantry unit, and for a while now we should have split out the medics and/or ambulances from them, as we have those units specifically represented now, and Mech Infantry don't work to heal other units.

So the argument is basically, if you have isolated these things into a non-homogenized mess and stopped just letting it be one blended oversimplification, then yeah, I guess they'd stop getting the ability to heal on the move.

Particularly when healing itself is also now divided between healing the soldiers and the mechanical needs for repair on vehicles. No mechanic is hanging out of these vehicles fixing them while they are on the move so when the vehicles are damaged, they need to get some time to repair those vehicles, and since the Mech Infantry will primarily be categorized as the vehicles rather than as the soldiers (though there would be considered some that are permanently 'attached' to those vehicles to operate their weapon systems and drive them) then it has finally stopped making sense to have them heal on the move, however the soldiers being transported would naturally do so, just as they do when they are on a ship, all the faster if medical units are there to help them along. The normal game mechanics now account for what was being made up for by giving Mech Infantry the March Promo for free.

I think I have an answer from this. Thank you.

BTW, Mech Infantry has been mostly a transport unit for some 2-3 years now, back when Hydro and I were doing some unit planning on new wheeled vehicles, so this isn't exactly new... just a realization that as a result they no longer deserve this ability.

 

[Joij21]

I view healing as a lot different than just healing per say. Instead to me healing of actual wounded units only accounts for maybe 10% of the whole healing process. The rest is your unit staying put until new recruits can arrive to fill in the vacancies left by the fallen soldiers in that unit. Hence why healing is faster in your own territory because your closer to the cities from where new recruits to replace the fallen would be recruited. That would also explain why its slower to heal in the enemy's territory as reinforcements have to travel further and avoid enemies in order to catch up to the main column. The main column being represented by a single unit which actually has a much larger amount of soldiers and supplies trailing behind it that you as the player can't see in order to resupply it after each battle. After all it wouldn't make much sense if every soldier in a unit simply got non life threatening injures and was able to be magically healed to get the unit to full strength. Obviously some men are going to get killed after every engagement and medics can't exactly bring the dead back to life.

Same goes with my opinion of artillery after engaging the enemy. It's not that the unit necessarily gets injured but rather the artillery has run low on shells hence weakening the unit after battle and thus requiring to wait till more ammo supplies come to bring it back to full strength.

With that opinion as to how healing really works I still believe mechanized infantry should still have the march promotion. March as a promotion simply means that as vehicles inevitable get destroyed in the unit after battle the vehicles in the supply line are fast enough to catch up to the main column while its moving. After all march is only healing itself and not other units.

 

[Toffer90]

Yeah, as with Joij21, healing is to me more about replacing lost equipment and manpower than it is about repairs and wound treatment.

 

[Thunderbrd]

I view healing as a lot different than just healing per say. Instead to me healing of actual wounded units only accounts for maybe 10% of the whole healing process. The rest is your unit staying put until new recruits can arrive to fill in the vacancies left by the fallen soldiers in that unit. Hence why healing is faster in your own territory because your closer to the cities from where new recruits to replace the fallen would be recruited. That would also explain why its slower to heal in the enemy's territory as reinforcements have to travel further and avoid enemies in order to catch up to the main column. The main column being represented by a single unit which actually has a much larger amount of soldiers and supplies trailing behind it that you as the player can't see in order to resupply it after each battle. After all it wouldn't make much sense if every soldier in a unit simply got non life threatening injures and was able to be magically healed to get the unit to full strength. Obviously some men are going to get killed after every engagement and medics can't exactly bring the dead back to life.

Same goes with my opinion of artillery after engaging the enemy. It's not that the unit necessarily gets injured but rather the artillery has run low on shells hence weakening the unit after battle and thus requiring to wait till more ammo supplies come to bring it back to full strength.

With that opinion as to how healing really works I still believe mechanized infantry should still have the march promotion. March as a promotion simply means that as vehicles inevitable get destroyed in the unit after battle the vehicles in the supply line are fast enough to catch up to the main column while its moving. After all march is only healing itself and not other units.

Yeah, as with Joij21, healing is to me more about replacing lost equipment and manpower than it is about repairs and wound treatment.

While there are some understandable large scale rationales for these perspectives about reinforcements being healing, if that were the view, we should just get rid of healing units entirely because doctors don't recruit new soldiers and mechanics don't build actual new vehicles. The entire unit system in this game is based on healing being about recovery and repair so to go with this rationale, we should have to really change a lot more than this and start showing how production is impacted as units heal, and population declines as it is taken from cities to reinforce injured units.

As it stands, pending adjustments to SM to show actual casualties in deaths without having to think of a unit as everybody lives (albeit injured) or everybody dies in a given battle, are yet to be included but are still being planned.

 

[Toffer90]

While there are some understandable large scale rationales for these perspectives about reinforcements being healing, if that were the view, we should just get rid of healing units entirely because doctors don't recruit new soldiers and mechanics don't build actual new vehicles. The entire unit system in this game is based on healing being about recovery and repair so to go with this rationale, we should have to really change a lot more than this and start showing how production is impacted as units heal, and population declines as it is taken from cities to reinforce injured units.

As it stands, pending adjustments to SM to show actual casualties in deaths without having to think of a unit as everybody lives (albeit injured) or everybody dies in a given battle, are yet to be included but are still being planned.

I agree that the view conflicts with a lot of the game design in that regard atm.
Though doctors will allow more to recover after a battle, so less replacements are needed to fully heal, and a lot of equipment may be salvageable with mechanics around so that less supplies have to be shipped to the unit for it to become fully operational.
Don't know if we want units to have two health bars, where one represent manpower+supplies and function as a max limit for the other health bar that represent the general condition of the unit (wounded, equipment condition, morale). So that the former may be higher than the latter but not vice versa; and medics/mechanics can only help replenish the latter, while the former needs hammers from a city or for the unit to return to a city.

 

[Joij21]

While there are some understandable large scale rationales for these perspectives about reinforcements being healing, if that were the view, we should just get rid of healing units entirely because doctors don't recruit new soldiers and mechanics don't build actual new vehicles. The entire unit system in this game is based on healing being about recovery and repair so to go with this rationale, we should have to really change a lot more than this and start showing how production is impacted as units heal, and population declines as it is taken from cities to reinforce injured units.

As it stands, pending adjustments to SM to show actual casualties in deaths without having to think of a unit as everybody lives (albeit injured) or everybody dies in a given battle, are yet to be included but are still being planned.

I agree that the view conflicts with a lot of the game design in that regard atm.
Though doctors will allow more to recover after a battle, so less replacements are needed to fully heal, and a lot of equipment may be salvageable with mechanics around so that less supplies have to be shipped to the unit for it to become fully operational.
Don't know if we want units to have two health bars, where one represent manpower+supplies and function as a max limit for the other health bar that represent the general condition of the unit (wounded, equipment condition, morale). So that the former may be higher than the latter but not vice versa; and medics/mechanics can only help replenish the latter, while the former needs hammers from a city or for the unit to return to a city.

I don't think it has to be that complex. After all we already spend gold on the supply cost for units which to me seems to be the actual production going towards the units. Also you can spend gold based on currency to speed up production in cities which makes it look as if gold is some sort of excess production. And population doesn't have to decrease because it never decreases when you normally train units (with the exception of the draft). So it seems like the military are a population separate to the main population (your military population in the statistics can be higher than your civilian population after all) like their own separate caste.

I also agree with Toffer that mechanics and medics aren't invalid from such a view point as they actually speed up the process of healing by recovering damaged machinery and soldiers on the spot instead of waiting for more fresh meat to arrive.

 

[Thunderbrd]

I agree that the view conflicts with a lot of the game design in that regard atm.
Though doctors will allow more to recover after a battle, so less replacements are needed to fully heal, and a lot of equipment may be salvageable with mechanics around so that less supplies have to be shipped to the unit for it to become fully operational.
Don't know if we want units to have two health bars, where one represent manpower+supplies and function as a max limit for the other health bar that represent the general condition of the unit (wounded, equipment condition, morale). So that the former may be higher than the latter but not vice versa; and medics/mechanics can only help replenish the latter, while the former needs hammers from a city or for the unit to return to a city.

Well the other side of the consequences here is that if we consider reinforcement speed the reason for the free March promo effect on Mech Infantry, then why not then also assign the same to even faster units, like recon, helicopters, even tanks in some cases? There's also no adaptation in this ability to how far away from the supply sources the damaged unit actually is aside from the whole 'territory healing variation' (which I have always taken to mean more how well the injured in the unit can relax more than anything to do with reinforcements arriving.)

We do have, to a hidden extent, different health bars to represent the different types of health, the health of People, of the Mechanical devices, the Programming integrity (of computerized units), the Animals and so on, but the unit has as much health overall as its lowest bar so it's not necessary to make all that totally visible (though maybe with your skills it might be interesting to try to make it more visible somehow.)

The idea I want to implement with SM to eventually better represent permanent casualties is that if your unit loses enough in battle, like half your HP or more, at the end of battle, the unit is force split. One third of the unit is destroyed, perhaps before the game even starts to try to initiate the third unit, then as much damage as can be soaked up is assigned to the one that was 'killed' and what remains is divided evenly between the other two. This will represent permanent casualties and will also show how having to bring in a LOT of refreshment forces, depending on the level of training they are getting out the gate, can dilute the extreme levels of experience in units in the field.

I don't really want to get into doing this until some basic foundational AI restructuring has taken place that will help them with improved reinforcement logistics. This is one of their most flawed areas as it is at the moment so I fear that such a mechanic would harm the AI much worse than the player. For now.

I also agree with Toffer that mechanics and medics aren't invalid from such a view point as they actually speed up the process of healing by recovering damaged machinery and soldiers on the spot instead of waiting for more fresh meat to arrive.

I'm sure you can tell that I prefer more explicit and less fluid definitions to the reasoning behind effects, wherever possible. The more it can feel like a simulation and less like a game with arbitrary assignments just following some kind of rule of cool, the better, the more grit the experience takes on, the more one can suspend disbelief and experience a resulting sense of immersion.

I'm not suggesting that this ability be removed from all units either... it is currently set up in the plan to represent a low gauge first layer capacity for regeneration.

 

[Toffer90]

I'm of the opinion that no units should have "heal on the move" ability by default, perhaps nanite swarms can be the exception, the march promotion is one of the most OP promotions in the game and it should imo come with some penalties to balance the effect of it a bit out, like slower healing or -75% exp from combats or something along that line. And it should only be available to elite units (meaning those with a lot of exp/levels).

 

[Joij21]

Well the other side of the consequences here is that if we consider reinforcement speed the reason for the free March promo effect on Mech Infantry, then why not then also assign the same to even faster units, like recon, helicopters, even tanks in some cases?

I'd be all for this, though I don't really know about the tanks (unless they're really fast).

I'm sure you can tell that I prefer more explicit and less fluid definitions to the reasoning behind effects, wherever possible. The more it can feel like a simulation and less like a game with arbitrary assignments just following some kind of rule of cool, the better, the more grit the experience takes on, the more one can suspend disbelief and experience a resulting sense of immersion.

I'm sure when Firaxis made the game they could have made it more explicit but didn't for two reasons.

1.) To probably keep the ratings E for everyone by not directly implying that even when your units win your sending thousands of men to the slaughter.
2.) Graphically showing the supply lines with all it's bells and whistles would have been complex to code and seeing a conga line of soldiers and supplies trailing your units would have created a cluster fudge on the map.

 

[Thunderbrd]

I'm of the opinion that no units should have "heal on the move" ability by default, perhaps nanite swarms can be the exception, the march promotion is one of the most OP promotions in the game and it should imo come with some penalties to balance the effect of it a bit out, like slower healing or -75% exp from combats or something along that line. And it should only be available to elite units (meaning those with a lot of exp/levels).

So we're mostly in agreement. The fantastic degrees of fantasy/sci-fi in the end of the try do start to justify it for those units though.

I'd be all for this, though I don't really know about the tanks (unless they're really fast).

Keep in mind, my main thing with this is reappropriating the ability to show something a little more impressive than just an improved supply line. BY making it a little more restricted to some later units, I'm being a bit more specific as to what it's really about.

I'm sure when Firaxis made the game they could have made it more explicit but didn't for two reasons.

1.) To probably keep the ratings E for everyone by not directly implying that even when your units win your sending thousands of men to the slaughter.
2.) Graphically showing the supply lines with all it's bells and whistles would have been complex to code and seeing a conga line of soldiers and supplies trailing your units would have created a cluster fudge on the map.

Sure, I agree that Firaxis had a goal of amalgamating various effects so that some complexity and depth could be smoothed out into a more assumable blend. However, the goal of this whole mod has always been to split these kinds of things up, isolate, identify, and from those divisions create elements that need to be given more in-play consideration. So for the goal of an initial game entry, Firaxis was doing exactly what it should do. As you get into a more advanced game built from that original core, it should start to divide these kinds of presumptions out. IMHO anyhow.

I've often considered another design path for an optional side of the mod that goes the opposite way, and just takes swordsmen, axes, spears and so on and just makes 'armies' for units. Super simplified even further basically, with perhaps some automatic promos and various upgrades that show the differences armies pick up as techs advance, but all in all, just blend everything into an amalgamation of military forces entirely. I think some players might prefer that.

 

[Yudishtira]

I unobsoleted Guerrillas, and now Felis Superiors are unstoppable. I've autorazed about 15 cities, captured 3 or 4, and made room to found another 6 or so of my own. One of the cities autorazed had cultural defence of 450ish%, and str 100+ defenders, but with enough (about 40) FSs, it's no obstacle. They can't capture the city, which is why you need the Guerrillas. Oh and all this in peacetime. 35 FSs took down a chopper horde with strength 721. And at least half of them survive. Not that that matters because most cities can build brand-new ones with Bottleneck IV in one turn.

They really should not require the Prehistoric unique wonder. It won't help with a runaway tech leader, but the first thing that needs to happen is, they need to be trainable by everyone.