Changing ranged strength for ALL ranged units

[Trigan Emperor]

From experience of playing and testing the game, I am of the opinion that ranged units in this game are over-powered. Searching online, it seems others have reached a similar conclusion. I was thinking of testing out playing a game with reduced ranged attack strength for units, perhaps reducing the amount of damage ranged units do by half.

Is there a way to easily globally mod units, say reducing all ranged unit's ranged strength by a half or a third, or would the ranged strength have to be changed for every ranged unit individually as part of an update file?

 

[Trigan Emperor]

I've been editing the files myself and it only takes a few minutes. I suppose that if I want to make it into a mod to share with other people, I'll have to learn how to make a single mod file that contains all changes, rather than having to edit each individual file.

Anyway, check this out...

Infantry attacks Infantry. They both damage each other significantly: each losing 29% HP.

Machine Gun attacks Infantry. Machine Gun receives no damage, Infantry loses 27% HP.

Infantry attacks Machine Gun. Both receive heavy damage, although the Infantry inflicts slightly more. 32% vs 27% of HP.

https://i.imgur.com/DWrxSNM.jpg[img]

I'm thinking of halving all ranged units' ranged attack strength and seeing how I like it. For example, here is Machine Gun damage with ranged attack halved. It's not dissimilar with other ranged units in the game, and they have range of 2.

[img]https://i.imgur.com/LrJOFZX.jpg[/img][/img]

 

[Troller0001]

You could give a -50% combat bonus 'promotion' to all ranged units, like this (this code assumes that PROMOTION_RANGED_COMBAT is being defined somewhere else):

INSERT INTO Unit_FreePromotions
               (UnitType, PromotionType)
SELECT Type, 'PROMOTION_RANGED_IS_WEAK'
FROM Units WHERE RangedCombat>0 AND Domain != 'DOMAIN_AIR';

or directly edit the ranged combat strength of those units using a similar SQL statement.

 

[Trigan Emperor]

You could give a -50% combat bonus 'promotion' to all ranged units, like this (this code assumes that PROMOTION_RANGED_COMBAT is being defined somewhere else):

INSERT INTO Unit_FreePromotions
               (UnitType, PromotionType)
SELECT Type, 'PROMOTION_RANGED_IS_WEAK'
FROM Units WHERE RangedCombat>0 AND Domain != 'DOMAIN_AIR';

or directly edit the ranged combat strength of those units using a similar SQL statement.

Thanks. I've decide its probably better to edit the actual Ranged Strengths of units, as the Ranged Strength a player will see will then be accurate, rather than what it would be before a -50% penalty.

These are the changes I am thinking of implementing.

1) Ranged units have their Ranged Strength halved.
2) Siege units get a +500% rather than +200% bonus vs cities, so their effectiveness against cities should be unaffected.
3) Air units do half as much damage, but also receive half as much damage.
4) Ranged "archer" units from Gatling Gun keep a range of 2, rather than having it reduced to 1.
5) Cities' ranged strength will also be halved. It's possible I will also make a small reduction to the base strength of cities, as non-siege ranged units will be less effective against them.

Can anyone see any unforeseen complications in these changes? Like an English Longbowman upgraded to Gatling Gun will be able to fire three hexes!

 

[Trigan Emperor]

Since I'm keeping "archer" ranged units having range of two, post-Crossbowman/Gatling Gun, I'm thinking of nerfing the English Longbowman unit by not giving it a +1 Range bonus, since if it's upgraded it'll make later units have range of three, which is probably too much.

Legion's about 21.4% stronger than Swordsman, with no other bonuses. So I thought I might give Longbowman double that bonus for Ranged Strength (but not Strength). So that would give Longbowman a Ranged Strength of 26 (25.7), compared with Crossbowman's 18, but with my halving of ranged strength, would be 13 vs 9.

In the long run, it's not as good as the previous bonuses, since they don't carry over with upgrades, but the English are quite a powerful Civ with their extra Spy anyway.

Any thoughts on this? I haven't decided on it yet.

Also, another thing I'll probably have to change is the promotion that Siege units can gain from experience, that being a further vs Cities bonus. Any other units or promotions with something I might need to look at?

 

[Ryika]

All Bow Units can pick up the extra Range Promotion and you'd still end up with 3 range Gatling Guns, so I don't really see why you would remove it from Longbowmen just because they have easier access to it.
Overall, I don't really see why you'd want to change the lategame ranged system. Yeah it's a bit weird to have units go from 2 range to 1, but the Artillery comes in and takes the position of the new ranged unit while Gatling Guns take the spot of defensive "Melee" Units (as they can take a hit and deal decent damage in the process, then attack for free).

In general, I would be careful with anything that reduces combat damage, as it makes fighting even more of a drag than it already is.

 

[Trigan Emperor]

All Bow Units can pick up the extra Range Promotion and you'd still end up with 3 range Gatling Guns, so I don't really see why you would remove it from Longbowmen just because they have easier access to it.

Thanks. I might just try disabling the +1 Range promotion altogether.

In general, I would be careful with anything that reduces combat damage, as it makes fighting even more of a drag than it already is.

Yeah, I like what I see in testing, but I'll have to play a game with it before I decide whether I think it's an improvement or not.