changes in the latest patches

[azum4roll]

What about embarked -30%, war canoes +30% and embarked with defense +30%? If they can't retaliate the numbers look fine.

 

[Stalker0]

I completely agree that things like double CS while embarked need to be changed if this alternate model stays....but before we spend a lot of forum time and code changes debating what to do about it.... can we try the new model and decide if we are actually going to use it?

Because if we revert to the old way all of this debate is wasted time.

I would recommend (similar to Morocco), remove Songhai from the list of civs at the moment... lets try it out. If it looks reasonable, then we pound the details of these issues. If it doesn't....then we saved some time.

 

[JamesNinelives]

To clarify how these patches work, does this latest patch also include the changes from the previous one - e.g. the Morocco fix?

 

[SuperNoobCamper]

I would recommend (similar to Morocco), remove Songhai from the list of civs at the moment... lets try it out. If it looks reasonable, then we pound the details of these issues. If it doesn't....then we saved some time.

I think we need to specifically test Songhai, Denmark and Spanish Conquistadors and how they function with the new system because if the new system is to stay and make to the next versions these specific civs would need some adjustments especially the Songhai war Canoe and extra defense on embarkation for conquistadors.

 

[CppMaster]

I think we need to specifically test Songhai, Denmark and Spanish Conquistadors and how they function with the new system because if the new system is to stay and make to the next versions these specific civs would need some adjustments especially the Songhai war Canoe and extra defense on embarkation for conquistadors.

Nah, 1st test if the system is ok in general and then tweak those civs if we keep it. Not the other way around.

 

[Tekamthi]

i foresee traffic jams in some coastal areas, and perhaps unintended blockades, maybe gameable by human, but otherwise am eager to give this a shot.. i can see how it might be simpler for AI to analyze

since defensive CS will now be same regardless of embarked status, consider allowing already-embarked units to pass through canals/cities staying embarked (ie to count as a naval unit for stacking purposes until they enter a tile that does not allow naval movement)? will be a slight help to moving units out of the way and on to their destination, with fewer tile choices available for movement (otherwise units have to disembark and reembark, costing 2 extra turns to move through such tiles)

 

[pineappledan]

i foresee traffic jams in some coastal areas, and perhaps unintended blockades, maybe gameable by human, but otherwise am eager to give this a shot.. i can see how it might be simpler for AI to analyze

since defensive CS will now be same regardless of embarked status, consider allowing already-embarked units to pass through canals/cities staying embarked (ie to count as a naval unit for stacking purposes until they enter a tile that does not allow naval movement)? will be a slight help to moving units out of the way and on to their destination, with fewer tile choices available for movement (otherwise units have to disembark and reembark, costing 2 extra turns to move through such tiles)

could cause issues if moving a unit into a city or fort that you are trying to garrison there. They would block naval movement through that city and they wouldn’t be able to attack until they disembark onto an adjacent land tile (thus Ending their turn outside the city). This would be especially bad for ranged and siege units that you are trying to move into cities to fortify them against attacks. I think this would cause more problems for defensive positioning than it would solve for unit movement

 

[Zanteogo]

I think we need to specifically test Songhai, Denmark and Spanish Conquistadors and how they function with the new system because if the new system is to stay and make to the next versions these specific civs would need some adjustments especially the Songhai war Canoe and extra defense on embarkation for conquistadors.

Conquistadors keep their embarked defense on upgrade as well. Taken to the extreme picture a 150 strength Giant Death Robot with a bonus on top of this. Even if they remove retaliation it's going to be taking next to no damage from anything thrown against it.

 

[Recursive]

To clarify how these patches work, does this latest patch also include the changes from the previous one - e.g. the Morocco fix?

Morocco fix is included in this patch.

 

[pineappledan]

What about embarked -30%, war canoes +30% and embarked with defense +30%? If they can't retaliate the numbers look fine.

I completely agree that things like double CS while embarked need to be changed if this alternate model stays....but before we spend a lot of forum time and code changes debating what to do about it.... can we try the new model and decide if we are actually going to use it?

Because if we revert to the old way all of this debate is wasted time.

I would recommend (similar to Morocco), remove Songhai from the list of civs at the moment... lets try it out. If it looks reasonable, then we pound the details of these issues. If it doesn't....then we saved some time.

Conquistadors keep their embarked defense on upgrade as well. Taken to the extreme picture a 150 strength Giant Death Robot with a bonus on top of this. Even if they remove retaliation it's going to be taking next to no damage from anything thrown against it.

Double embarked defense is a Boolean code. I think the easiest, most immediate fix is to give naval melee/ranged/sub units a +100% bonus vs embarked units. I also agree that giving subs additional bonuses vs embarked units in their promotion tree is a great idea.

As proposed here, if there is no hard bonus for naval units vs embarked units, I simply won’t build naval units. Naval won’t be able to lay enough damage on embarked units; I will simply create larger land armies, absorb whatever damage an opposing navy tries to deal as I invade their continent, and Carry out a land war. Unless sea domain units can make utter mincemeat off land domain units, I see no reason to dilute my war production with them.

 

[Tekamthi]

could cause issues if moving a unit into a city or fort that you are trying to garrison there. They would block naval movement through that city and they wouldn’t be able to attack until they disembark onto an adjacent land tile (thus Ending their turn outside the city). This would be especially bad for ranged and siege units that you are trying to move into cities to fortify them against attacks. I think this would cause more problems for defensive positioning than it would solve for unit movement

yes good thinking, maybe the naval unit that enters this tile could then force the unit to disembark, but now we're getting complicated.

Ultimately i feel that this change will need to free up movement somehow to alleviate gridlock... maybe i'm theorycrafting too much as i have only just started a game with ilteroi's latest but i tend to informally blockade rivals already in VP wherever possible lol.. my offensive strategies leave much to be desired but I survive deity by playing the "neutral zone trap" (for any hockey fans out there)... ie during peace time, my navy travels around and occupies key tiles in conflict zones, to tilt the results in favor of my interests.. This change seems a large boost to my playstyle, which is why on reflection i am not as opposed to it as I first thought I'd be.

maybe double-movement through naval tiles already occupied by a friendly unit? or, dare i say it, we bring back some form of shoot-n-scoot? melee-n-scoot?

 

[pineappledan]

Based on what ilteroi has said about how this reduces AI logic and makes substantially lighter code with fewer exceptions, I think this is here to stay. That means we don’t need to test it as a concept, we need to test balance around it.

Military units not being stackable with naval units means that they need to be able to take at least a few hits, but they have to be weaker and less useful embarked as they are on land. This change causes a few problems:

• How do you make naval units strong enough in their own domain that they are still necessary, if they can’t protect land armies
• If military units are now defense only in water, they still can create ZOC. I assume they can’t blockade cities though?
• I presume ranged attacks from land units and cities at embarked units no longer do increased damage, so at least naval units still have the advantage of their -25% naval inaccuracy bonus

in order to at least begin to address the new balance issues, we are going to need at least 2 new columns:

• Bonus defense while embarked: to either give all land units via the embarkation promotion to give a broad penalty while embarked, or to replace the Boolean +100% bonus that double embarked defense currently gives
• Bonus attack vs embarked: to give to naval units, or at least naval melee units so that they can at least trade favourably with embarked land units and preserve their own niche.
  • As an extra bonus, this opens a new specialization for naval units as anti-embarkation units.

Thus, someone is going to have to design

 

[Zanteogo]

As proposed here, if there is no hard bonus for naval units vs embarked units, I simply won’t build naval units. Naval won’t be able to lay enough damage on embarked units; I will simply create larger land armies, absorb whatever damage an opposing navy tries to deal as I invade their continent, and Carry out a land war. Unless sea domain units can make utter mincemeat off land domain units, I see no reason to dilute my war production with them.

My feelings as well. I fear naval is going the way of air units. Where it's nice to have a couple around but not much point investing into too many of them.

Not to sound like a broken record but, again, if it's not broken don't fix it. Seriously, I get there was some issue on the code side with embarked units and naval units sharing the same place, but from the end users prospective it all was working fine. It's taken forever to fine tune Vox into what we have, but then a major part of the game is flipped upside down and from the end user side, for no good reason. It's like starting back at square one for balancing everything. Humans are smart and will find ways to game all these new changes which opens up many more months of tweaking and adjusting.

The side effect of all this adjusting will spill into other already balanced and tuned systems. I predict all civs that have naval attributes will be getting the nerf gun in the end. Either because actual naval units will be less useful or because they will have their embarked bonuses changed as to not be overpowered. (Poor Spain is not going to be happy)

 

[Zanteogo]

Based on what ilteroi has said about how this reduces AI logic and makes substantially lighter code with fewer exceptions, I think this is here to stay. That means we don’t need to test it as a concept, we need to test balance around it.

What actual effect does making the code "lighter". When everything was working fine before, what possible reason does making things work better in the background when they have been working fine in the foreground?

It seriously seems like making changes for changes sake. Problem is from end users prospective we get to go though months of balancing and adjusting. Time that, with all due respect, could be used to fix and adjust broken things like trade deal logic (impossible deals), the whole event system that is full of bugs and out right broken in some areas.

I honestly appreciate the free hard work being done though. This is all just constructive criticism.

 

[pineappledan]

What actual effect does making the code "lighter". When everything was working fine before, what possible reason does making things work better in the background when they have been working fine in the foreground?

fixing “the background“ is CPP’s main goal. The project is about making a fun and balanced single player experience around competent AI opponent. Fixing embarkation logic and streamlining the rules will help late game stability and help the AI be better at controlling its units. Both of these things are noticeable to the end user.

 

[Zanteogo]

fixing “the background“ is CPP’s main goal. The project is about making a fun and balanced single player experience around competent AI opponent. Fixing embarkation logic and streamlining the rules will help late game stability and help the AI be better at controlling its units. Both of these things are noticeable to the end user.

Fair enough. I however have had little to zero issue with stability and have found the AI fairly decent at operating their empires including their units. (Certainly way better than the vanilla AI)

Looking over the bug reports it seems most people with CTD issues also have a dozen other mods running at the same time. Personally I have a feeling this is where most of the stability issues comes from.

I guess if it bothers me enough I can always just stick to an early version. I plan on sticking it out with the new one for a bit to give it a chance regardless.

 

[Tekamthi]

but they have to be weaker and less useful embarked as they are on land. This change causes a few problems:

• How do you make naval units strong enough in their own domain that they are still necessary, if they can’t protect land armies

i think you could fix this concern simply by making a defending embarked unit not inflict damage on naval melee... thus you have a force at sea that can launch attacks with impunity against an embarked-only navy, even if these embarked units can take a few hits and sustain some unreciprocated damage

What actual effect does making the code "lighter". When everything was working fine before, what possible reason does making things work better in the background when they have been working fine in the foreground?

I think this is a good question... on my end, things were working pretty well prior to this change, and though the AI did drop the ball here and there, it didn't seem to meet the threshold of entirely "broken" and requiring an overhaul. Ultimately though, I think discussion concerning reverting anything will be more valuable after we can clearly see the pro's/con's of the results here.. i suspect these changes will be more playable once tweaked and balanced than it strikes many of us currently

 

[Recursive]

What actual effect does making the code "lighter". When everything was working fine before, what possible reason does making things work better in the background when they have been working fine in the foreground?

It seriously seems like making changes for changes sake. Problem is from end users prospective we get to go though months of balancing and adjusting. Time that, with all due respect, could be used to fix and adjust broken things like trade deal logic (impossible deals), the whole event system that is full of bugs and out right broken in some areas.

I honestly appreciate the free hard work being done though. This is all just constructive criticism.

Firaxis's highly questionable DLL was so terribly coded that the bulk of changes in the years since the project started have been DLL modifications to make other changes a) possible, b) flexible and c) not full of bugs. If every small change you make has a hundred unintended side effects (the situation ilteroi was describing) it will lead to more crashes, bugs, AI issues and balancing problems.

Simplifying, improving and cleaning up backend code is important to the project - particularly since there are only three major volunteer contributors currently active, rather than the small paid army that Firaxis had (and in certain respects, squandered).

 

[Stalker0]

Yeah the greatest impact of “lighter code” is it leads to less bugs popping up in the future.

PAD asked a great question, I assume embarked units still don’t have ZOC, is that correct?

 

[Gazebo]

Here's food for thought: what if embarked units could retaliate? Right now, they're military units in civilian clothing...perhaps we could let them defend and retaliate against melee damage to mitigate their lack of utility at sea.

G