Crackerbox
King
- Joined
- Feb 25, 2015
- Messages
- 721
For one of the WROL edition mods in the modern era, I'd like for there to be some postmodern units that can be captured and immobile. I guess they're designated to some Civ, made available to all civs, but immobile and without an attack or defense value. Then these can be upgraded (but at a high cost as well as knowing the technology) into working units.
Say there's a tank museum and some of the units can thus be put back into service. I guess for practical use, then for example the order of upgrades needs to be.
1. Abandoned immobile tank
2. Movable crippled tank
3. Working tank
The cost to make it movable wouldn't be too high but it would have nearly no offensive or defensive strength and nearly no movement rate. It would be a lot of work to get it to a city to upgrade it.
What do people think? Has anyone made/used this idea in their mods or scenarios? By making it an upgrade, then the abandoned and crippled versions only show up in this manner. The initial unit has to be immobile so that it's not creating havok. Maybe it's a designated barbarian unit? Is there a way to make it upgradable in the field to make it the crippled version or can upgrades ONLY happen in cities?
In this example, since it's a tank museum, then that could be within a city, and so upgraded there. Other units might be found abandoned in the field.
Maybe they could be treated in either the manner like captured artillery or they could be "enslaved" and automatically changed into the crippled limited mobile version in the field too?
EDIT:
This same method might be done to automatically upgrade initial units in the mod. Say you begin with some very low-grade civilian units that are poorly equipped. You capture a barbarian held settlement with that had only some weak defending units but you overwhelm them. Within the barbarian city there is either an improvement that allows hanguns due to a local resource cache of them, or there are some immobile units with handguns that then are captured and can be upgraded. It's sort of a way to upgrade your existing units or to signify new people you've met that were captives and who with your help have been freed to be a part of your party.
I'm trying to think of ways in a post-apoc mod how units would realistically happen. Everything would be so crippled with no Rule of Law, and no initial ability to create units. Instead a ton of foraging for supplies would happen. The idea of improving the existing starting units is an intriguing one to me.
Example:
Think the Walking Dead. Sheriff Rick begins as an injured hospital patient without much ability to fend for himself. He then arms himself as an upgrade by visiting the sheriff's building, and then there could be an upgraded version of Rick with a shotgun. Then say later he finds some body armor and so the new upgrade shows Sheriff Rick with both a shotgun and body armour. You can't make the first version, but can upgrade it. It would be very limited.
Perhaps in the tank example you have a special tank engineer who then finds immobile tanks at the museum (without them being shown) and then can upgrade the engineer into a tank ?
In my mod, one of the homesteaders is a boat repair business operator. In this way, he could have one working boat, but several that are immobile, some that are crippled, and he could end up upgrading i.e. repair them to put them back in service. Now if he could sell them/trade them with the other homesteaders, a whole new economic system would exist such that some might create units to sell to another civilization(homesteader) in order to trade resources or to support infrastructure costs. He can't build new boats as it's beyond his capacity without hulls and parts, but it's plausible that he could salvage materials and refurbish the crippled ones to some degree.
As far as know, the only tradeable unit is a worker between civilizations. You could designate the "worker" as a special unit that no longer improves terrain, but could be upgraded into low level military units as precursors. A worker with a boat shop could become a refurbished boat after much upgrading. If you could create divergence (which I don't think is possible) then the precursor could become different things. I don't think you can have more than one tradeable unit type between civilzations.
The benefit of immobile units within cities under barbarian control
Simulation of maturing units
Say there's a tank museum and some of the units can thus be put back into service. I guess for practical use, then for example the order of upgrades needs to be.
1. Abandoned immobile tank
2. Movable crippled tank
3. Working tank
The cost to make it movable wouldn't be too high but it would have nearly no offensive or defensive strength and nearly no movement rate. It would be a lot of work to get it to a city to upgrade it.
What do people think? Has anyone made/used this idea in their mods or scenarios? By making it an upgrade, then the abandoned and crippled versions only show up in this manner. The initial unit has to be immobile so that it's not creating havok. Maybe it's a designated barbarian unit? Is there a way to make it upgradable in the field to make it the crippled version or can upgrades ONLY happen in cities?
In this example, since it's a tank museum, then that could be within a city, and so upgraded there. Other units might be found abandoned in the field.
Maybe they could be treated in either the manner like captured artillery or they could be "enslaved" and automatically changed into the crippled limited mobile version in the field too?
EDIT:
This same method might be done to automatically upgrade initial units in the mod. Say you begin with some very low-grade civilian units that are poorly equipped. You capture a barbarian held settlement with that had only some weak defending units but you overwhelm them. Within the barbarian city there is either an improvement that allows hanguns due to a local resource cache of them, or there are some immobile units with handguns that then are captured and can be upgraded. It's sort of a way to upgrade your existing units or to signify new people you've met that were captives and who with your help have been freed to be a part of your party.
I'm trying to think of ways in a post-apoc mod how units would realistically happen. Everything would be so crippled with no Rule of Law, and no initial ability to create units. Instead a ton of foraging for supplies would happen. The idea of improving the existing starting units is an intriguing one to me.
Example:
Think the Walking Dead. Sheriff Rick begins as an injured hospital patient without much ability to fend for himself. He then arms himself as an upgrade by visiting the sheriff's building, and then there could be an upgraded version of Rick with a shotgun. Then say later he finds some body armor and so the new upgrade shows Sheriff Rick with both a shotgun and body armour. You can't make the first version, but can upgrade it. It would be very limited.
Perhaps in the tank example you have a special tank engineer who then finds immobile tanks at the museum (without them being shown) and then can upgrade the engineer into a tank ?
In my mod, one of the homesteaders is a boat repair business operator. In this way, he could have one working boat, but several that are immobile, some that are crippled, and he could end up upgrading i.e. repair them to put them back in service. Now if he could sell them/trade them with the other homesteaders, a whole new economic system would exist such that some might create units to sell to another civilization(homesteader) in order to trade resources or to support infrastructure costs. He can't build new boats as it's beyond his capacity without hulls and parts, but it's plausible that he could salvage materials and refurbish the crippled ones to some degree.
As far as know, the only tradeable unit is a worker between civilizations. You could designate the "worker" as a special unit that no longer improves terrain, but could be upgraded into low level military units as precursors. A worker with a boat shop could become a refurbished boat after much upgrading. If you could create divergence (which I don't think is possible) then the precursor could become different things. I don't think you can have more than one tradeable unit type between civilzations.
The benefit of immobile units within cities under barbarian control
Spoiler :
Let's say that one of the cities that you come across has a sporting goods store. Within the "city" (which is basically a supply point) that sporting goods store (which is an improvement that cannnot be rebuilt) are two immobile modern crossbow units and two shotgun units. On their own they do nothing as they are inactivated until upgraded and so offer no resistance when taking over the barbarian city. It's a way to give four potential units which some time in the future the AI or player can upgrade. It limits how many units can be harvested from that spot and it's a surprise that they're there at that location.
Maybe the player or AI chooses to disband the improvement since it releases shields and turns the city into a new homestead. They might as well as that improvement won't do anything more for them.
Had I merely made a sporting goods store, then I'd have no control on how many units are created from it. With this kind of setup, then it doesn't automatically empower the civ that acquires them, so it doesn't immediately unbalance the mod. An alternative is that the sporting goods store automatically creates shotgun or crossbowmen every so many turns (like 30) as an alternative. This could still end up making far more of those units than I desire. It could be that giving one and only one unit that when upgraded could be powerful.
Say the city contains a unique building with a special crypt. That crypt in a horror mod could have an immobile Dracula that only by expensive upgrades becomes powerful. You can't just make Dracula as Lord of the Vampires as it unbalances the game. Giving more than one Dracula makes no sense. You don't want Dracula to show up more than once. But you could in this way make it possible for a vampire outbreak to happen but only under very special circumstances of upgrades and only if a particular city is taken over. Dracula would in turn enslave workers and the enslaved unit is a weaker vampire and possibly even an upgradeable vampire too. It could be enormously difficult to take control over without giving the Barbarians or another Civilization that unit too.
Maybe this is a way to make WROL Vampire Apocalypse Edition? I guess I watched and rewatched Stakeland too many times.
Maybe the player or AI chooses to disband the improvement since it releases shields and turns the city into a new homestead. They might as well as that improvement won't do anything more for them.
Had I merely made a sporting goods store, then I'd have no control on how many units are created from it. With this kind of setup, then it doesn't automatically empower the civ that acquires them, so it doesn't immediately unbalance the mod. An alternative is that the sporting goods store automatically creates shotgun or crossbowmen every so many turns (like 30) as an alternative. This could still end up making far more of those units than I desire. It could be that giving one and only one unit that when upgraded could be powerful.
Say the city contains a unique building with a special crypt. That crypt in a horror mod could have an immobile Dracula that only by expensive upgrades becomes powerful. You can't just make Dracula as Lord of the Vampires as it unbalances the game. Giving more than one Dracula makes no sense. You don't want Dracula to show up more than once. But you could in this way make it possible for a vampire outbreak to happen but only under very special circumstances of upgrades and only if a particular city is taken over. Dracula would in turn enslave workers and the enslaved unit is a weaker vampire and possibly even an upgradeable vampire too. It could be enormously difficult to take control over without giving the Barbarians or another Civilization that unit too.
Maybe this is a way to make WROL Vampire Apocalypse Edition? I guess I watched and rewatched Stakeland too many times.
Simulation of maturing units
Spoiler :
Likewise, the immobile powerless unit could be a teenager version of a special character or simply a teenage unit that is too young to fight. It can't be created within the game, but he or she might be freed from capitivity from barbarians or even other civilizations. That unit then can "mature" through upgrading to change into a different older model that is better armed. You could even make this maturation process happen by Small Wonders as milestones that allow the upgrade to happen. It's not automatic, but a choice to upgrade the unit into something more mature and usable.