CEP: Armies

[mystikx21]

The strength values on the wiki GEM units page include promotion values (adjusted per era, so later units have more), morale, and GG effects, and fortification on defence. They're not raw strength.

In so far as we understand that, I think that's fine to look at as a rough point of balance. It's just easier to interpret through the unadjusted value (plus not all promotions are evenly useful, or evenly applied, etc).

 

[mystikx21]

GEM units unadjusted.

Longswords/Arques: 23
Knights:25
Muskets: 30
Dragoons:40
Rifles: 40
Infantry: 50
Landship: 55
Tank: 80
Mech: 70
Armor: 120

The current mainline unit stats are far closer to the old vanguard unit stats. So I would say that's the intended design right now (and am in agreement that's a bad balance, as it's much of the reason the vanguards were less useful before).
Airborne: 38 (infantry/airborne 35)
Conscript: 27 (musket 25, rifle 30)
Skirmisher: 17 (arque 20)

The older spreadsheet from GEM also included a "strength from parent" calculation that was roughly +30-40% for era upgrades (factoring in the promotional effects). I don't see that on the CEP sheet, which might be a factor in why the units are less balanced overall.

 

[Ahriman]

Longswords/Arques: 23
Knights:25
Muskets: 30
Dragoons:40
Rifles: 40
Infantry: 50
Landship: 55
Tank: 80
Mech: 70
Armor: 120

This seems basically fine to me, with the exception of the knight being a bit strong.

Airborne: 38 (infantry/airborne 35)
Conscript: 27 (musket 25, rifle 30)
Skirmisher: 17 (arque 20)

The problem was that these units were not useful. It just doesn't work to create units whose main purpose isn't to fight, and you can't fight if you're an era behind in strength.

When we had those vanguards, they could be ignored, and you could build muskets and rifles that were decent. But now the main infantry line seems to have in effect disappeared.

 

[mystikx21]

I'd say tanks could be reduced about 10% from GEM as there's only the gunship as a hard counter now (have to take the anti-tank promo otherwise) but I'd be fine with those unit strengths with minor adjustments to other units like MGs or airborne as well.

Something like this progression on mobile units would work.
Knight 24, Dragoon, 38, Landship 50, Tank 70, Armor 100.

Gatling 35/25, MG 50/39, Bazooka 65/51 (bumped up a bit on the last two). Make these relatively cheap again
Cannon 20/30, Artillery 27/39, Rockets 39/60 (bump the last two slightly).
Airborne 50-55 (bumped up), XCOM 80

A slight bump in later naval or air units could work if needed, but they seem mostly unaffected by other unit changes (battleships are about the only significant change). If they were balanced before, there's no reason to move them now.

 

[zoommooz11]

Being very new to civ 5, my only comparison for balance can be with large, well established old civ 4 mods. Generally, (and realistically-very important to me, not so much to others) a tank should beat cavalry ever single time. More to the point, a tank should beat two cavalry units every time. Being ahead in tech, especially the huge step into the industrial era should give those civ's a large advantage. In my own rough estimate a tank should be twice as valuable militarily as cavalry, but cost about 1.8 times as much in hammers, as to go along with the industrial units, is the increase from the buildings of that era.

While lots of people are concerned with balance, I myself would much rather see realism come first. Got an Apache gunships? This unit should wipe the floor as it does in real modern warfare (but still be in danger from shoulder launched sam missiles, dedicated AA etc), but, alone with the power, comes an increase in cost.

 

[Ahriman]

Being very new to civ 5, my only comparison for balance can be with large, well established old civ 4 mods

The Civ5 combat model is very different from the Civ4 model. In Civ4, damaged units were basically equivalent to lower tech units. [Also: every fight led to either the attacker or defender dying, unless there was a specific withdraw ability.] That isn't the case in Civ5; even a damaged armor unit is still going to take very little damage from a cavalry unit, the only impact that being injured has is to slightly reduce the amount of damage you deal out. It has no impact on the amount of damage you receive.

So spearman vs tank really isn't an issue.

 

[zoommooz11]

That's actually a great improvement on combat. You rightly surmised that the spearmen vs tank was my fear. Is the combat calculations discussed somewhere, and is it moddable?

 

[mystikx21]

There's a combat calculations thread in the War Academy (off the main forum), but I haven't seen if this was updated for Gods and Kings. Brave new world didn't change much about combat, added some extra promotions and first strike. It might be the same except for changes in damaged units and changes in the hit point scale (multiply most of the numbers by 10).

It is modable by changing the min damage effects of ranged or melee combat, and by changing the strength of units involved. For the most part, this mod deals with unit balance by changing promotions, costs, and strengths and doesn't meddle with the combat structure underneath (the one significant change is to cities, which get more hit points, and more hit points from buildings, but heal slower, have less base strength, and get more strength from garrisons).

 

[Ahriman]

Is the combat calculations discussed somewhere

Probably somewhere in the archives.... but Civ5 has been out for a while now, and the combat system hasn't changed much (G&K made some changes by rescaling hitpoints and damage from being out of 10 to out of 100, and in general made units do slightly less damage). I've never seen a description of the exact formulas that determine the range of outcomes and probabilities that comes from a particular strength matchup.

and is it moddable?

Unit stats are all moddable, as are promotions, abilities, etc.
I don't think the core engine is very moddable, but I'm not sure why you'd want to, since you could achieve almost any effect by changing strengths or other parameters.

If there's something specific you want to see, then I can make a guess as to whether it might be possible.

 

[zoommooz11]

The Civ5 combat model is very different from the Civ4 model. In Civ4, damaged units were basically equivalent to lower tech units. [Also: every fight led to either the attacker or defender dying, unless there was a specific withdraw ability.] That isn't the case in Civ5; even a damaged armor unit is still going to take very little damage from a cavalry unit, the only impact that being injured has is to slightly reduce the amount of damage you deal out. It has no impact on the amount of damage you receive.

So spearman vs tank really isn't an issue.

The part where you said a damaged unit has a 'slightly' reduced damage output. I would have thought that a heavily damaged units should have a more pronounced reduction to damage output. So, for instance, a unit with 10/100 hit point would have its damage output reduced by 1/3-1/2.

Also, just to bump my previous unit balance question (I added it as an edit, which was probably missed), I am still trying to change the range of the guided missile, and cannot find out how.

From other thread: Also, I am trying to adjust the range of the guided missile. Even if I set the range to 8 in the units.xml, it remains 6, which I think is due to the promotions it starts with. In the promotions file (for the mod) I noticed the tag:

<Update>
<Where Type="PROMOTION_AIR_RANGE" />
<Set RangeChange="6"
PromotionPrereqOr4="PROMOTION_AIR_BOMBARDMENT_1"

Now, the missile itself does not have this promotion, but it does have the evasion promotion, which has a perquisite of air bombardment 2, which in turn has the perquisite promotion of air bombardment 1. Is this where my problem lies, or is there something else setting it range to 6 (If I disable the mod, the range matches unit xml numbers, so it is defiantly something in the mod).
/>

Lastly, thanks for helping me out guys. Really appreciated.

 

[Ahriman]

The part where you said a damaged unit has a 'slightly' reduced damage output. I would have thought that a heavily damaged units should have a more pronounced reduction to damage output. So, for instance, a unit with 10/100 hit point would have its damage output reduced by 1/3-1/2.

In Civ5 at release, damage output would be reduced linearly from 100% to 50% as health declined from 100% to 0%.

AFAIK, with Gods and Kings they changed the system so that damage was reduced linearly from 100% to 75% as health declined from 100% to 0%.

[This had the effect of severely nerfing the Japan civ, which I think is unfortunate, and means that Japan needs a redesign.]

I am still trying to change the range of the guided missile

I can't give specific advice, but I would be amazed if this wasn't possible, it should be a simple parameter change somewhere.

 

[mystikx21]

Air range promotion is for fighters/bombers, not missiles. That won't help.

If you want to set the cruise missile range...

(First of all, don't edit the default units.xml file. Anytime the game is patched, any changes will likely be overwritten. Create a mod or work off a mod to make changes, so as not to negate your work. If you are using a mod also, the mod will overwrite changes to the units.xml file if they both modify a unit or building, which is why any change to units.xml on guided missiles does nothing because CEP changes the range.)

If you are using CEP, go to the mod directory, armies directory and open the CEA_Land.xml file. Search for guided missile. Change the range to 8 from 6.

You could actually do the same thing by deleting the entire section editing guided missiles and allowing the game to revert to default range. It shouldn't have anything to do with the promotions it starts with. Range is a unit feature, which can be adjusted by promotions but is easier to set by default than by adjusting promotions.

 

[zoommooz11]

Done. Thanks.

 

[zoommooz11]

Sorry to bother again. In the CEP start file there is a line:

UPDATE Units SET Cost = Cost * 0.72 , Combat = Combat * 1.300 WHERE Class = 'UNITCLASS_RIFLEMAN';

However, no matter what I set here, the actual strength of rifleman in game stays at 30. All of the other tag in this file, when adjusted, do alter their in game units, just not this one. Any ideas why?

 

[stackpointer]

CEP shifted the gunpowder units a bit. The in game rifleman is actually "UNITCLASS_GREAT_WAR_INFANTRY". You can see discussion on this earlier in the thread.

 

[mystikx21]

Actually the discussion on that is pretty old (er than the thread, early GEM change), mostly because the name was so lame.

 

[truetom]

Great work so far, guys.
Questions, probably answered :
- I expected promotions to be visible above units in this mod stage. Will it be, when and / or can I do it?
- Where can I / what do I add to raise a cap on max exp from barbarians?

Use small words, please...

 

[Tomice]

You can change max barb xp in the "options.sql" file within the main CEG directory.

From what I know, The devs would love to reactivate the interface enhancements as soon as possible, but those elements are time-intensive to implement and likely to cause bugs and incompatibilities initially, so they focused on "easier" stuff until now.

 

[truetom]

ok, thanks

Where can I set a Carrier to have more aircraft, or Missile Cruiser to have more missiles?

 

[Thalassicus]

@truetom
Add this line to any sql file (like CEP_Options.sql):

UPDATE UnitPromotions SET CargoChange = CargoChange + 2 WHERE CargoChange > 0;

I think that should work, but I haven't tested it.