CiVUP - CiV Unofficial Patch

[Thalassicus]

@Ahriman
The promotion setup you describe is what's currently present in the Combat mod. I've now implemented the penalties part in the unofficial patch, but left the bonuses part in the Combat mod since that's a fuzzier line.

The promotion swapping is something I do feel strongly about due to the reason pointed out above:

Upgraded experienced units with a changed range are worse than newly-built units. The terrain-specific promotions have no effect, but the unit requires more experience to gain new promotions than a newly-built unit would. This seems very counter-intuitive. Experienced units should (by definition of the word) not be inferior to inexperienced units.

As a result, in the vanilla game it is generally better to delete these experienced units and build inexperienced ones, but only if their range changes. This feels like a basic error/oversight instead of a simple balance issue.

Accurately matching promotions is the most straightforward solution, compared to more complicated options like stripping promotions and reducing experience (which would be necessary to make the units equal to newly-built ones). Therefore, I moved promotion matching here from the Combat mod. If you wish to keep the experienced unit penalties, simply remove the "UP - General.lua" file.

 

[Ahriman]

I see the issue, but I think that the balance reasons dominate.

Being able to upgrade to a rifleman is already a huge increase, even without any promotions you're better off to upgrade that crossbow to a rifle than you are to disband it.

The second point is, the ineffectiveness of the upgrade route is part of the balance of the longbow and the CKN, and to a lesser extent the slinger.
Longbows and CKN are some of the most powerful units in the game, but they're deliberately so because they are semi-end-of-the-line units where they can't pass their upgrades on.

Another option which is still counter-intuitive but potentially balanced; when promoting a unit to a new type, could you strip away the useless promotions but also reduce the experience of the unit, either down to zero Xp or 14 XP (ie just below level 2)?

This would make them no worse than a newly built unit.

And it isn't counterintuitive to me that well-developed military doctrine and experience as a support unit doesn't necessarily translate well to an advantage as a frontline combat unit.

If you allow them to convert ranged promotions into melee promotions, then CKN's turned rifle will be super-high level when they do so.

 

[Minor Annoyance]

...the ineffectiveness of the upgrade route is part of the balance of the longbow and the CKN, and to a lesser extent the slinger.
Longbows and CKN are some of the most powerful units in the game, but they're deliberately so because they are semi-end-of-the-line units where they can't pass their upgrades on...

I'm not sure how you know that's what was intended.

 

[civcivv]

I would agree that adding the promotion swaps into the unofficial patch would be a good thing.
In terms of Tercios keeping UU upgrades whilst rifles don't benefit from pikemen upgrades, you could create a new promotion anti_mounted_iii only available to the tercio with all the same stats as the ii version.

Btw, some people are reporting issues along the lines of:
- Siam's bonus being wonky (only given if going directly from neutral to allied, NOT if you go friendly->allied. But if you then go to war you keep the bonus anyway. If you then go allied again you get the bonus another time on top).
- Fresh water farm bonus being displayed and all but not actually being counted (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=404303)
- City state quest issue with Road requests
- A unit that has March can be upgraded to receive Repair, but it really does nothing. Repair is the same as march, but for mechanical units. Mechanical units with March continue to benefit from its effects too. Maybe combine the 2?
- Ranged units that are wounded still fight at full strength using ranged attacks (wounded penalty not applied to ranged combat, just combat)

 

[player1 fanatic]

Hmm...

12/22 Hotfix

Hey guys,

Tomorrow (12/22) we will be releasing a hotfix to address a few issues with the most recent major patch. Here are the changes:


[STABILITY]

* Fix for various rare crash bugs


[MODDING]

* Re-enabled LUA library unused in the core game. It was removed because we didn’t think modders were using it, and apparently many, many are using it.


[GAMEPLAY]

* Fixed bug where as Siam, food from Maritime City States didn't provide the expected result.
* Make a few more negative promotions not pass through on upgrades
* Made the Mandekalu mounted unit have the same negative vs city as the other mounted units
* Increased the chance that the AI will improve sea plots

http://forums.2kgames.com/showthread.php?100692-12-22-Hotfix

 

[Tomice]

If you did have some kind of conversion system, then I would convert them to a much weaker modern version; eg bombardment promotions that give +20% convert into melee promotions that give +5% or something.
They should definitely not convert a 20% ranged promotion into a 20% melee promotion.

I wouldn't agree. Upgrading an existing unit should always be beneficial. I don't think a rule that rewards players for keeping experienced crossbowmen as crossbowmen up to the industrial era is not desireable.

The devs seem to think that the range of a musket is no longer to be considered a "range" in later eras, because EVERY unit has some range after gunpowder. That's OK, but realistically I think crossbowmen had little problems changing heir crossbows into muskets, the handling is similar. Why should it be better to upgrade trained melee fighters with ranged weapons?

Alternatively, there would be the option of upgrading crossbows to cannons (not done because of the great number of promoted cannons one could easily get) or to create some historically slighly inaccurate light ranged renaissance/industrial era unit ("mortar team").

 

[BomberEscort]

CIV5Buildings.xml changes in 1.0.1.135 that may need their descriptions updated:

Watermill now gives +1
Floating Gardens now gives +1
Ironworks now gives now gives +10 instead of +20%

 

[Ahriman]

Upgrading an existing unit should always be beneficial.

It is. A rifleman is always far better than a crossbowman, and it is far cheaper to upgrade a crossbowman to a rifleman than it is to buy a new rifleman.

If you and your enemies have rifles, then crossbows are pretty much useless, because they do pathetic damage.

but realistically I think crossbowmen had little problems changing heir crossbows into muskets, the handling is similar.

No its not. Archery and crossbow units are trained to withdraw whenever enemies get close. Muskets are trained and drilled to stand under fire and to advance under fire towards the enemy.

Alternatively, there would be the option of upgrading crossbows to cannons (not done because of the great number of promoted cannons one could easily get) or to create some historically slighly inaccurate light ranged renaissance/industrial era unit ("mortar team").

I'd definitely prefer this method.
Upgrading to cannon wouldn't be problematic as long as it was sufficiently expensive; you can always buy cannon if you have enough gold.

Anyway, again, not my mod, just trying to provide some feedback and highlight the balance consequences of promotion switching (which get even worse when combined with the archer buffs in the combat balance mod).

 

[Tomice]

Your balancing suggestions are very well-thought-out, Ahriman, but I have the fear that the result of them might be better balance, but less fun.

It might be problematic for balancing to swap promotions. But obsolete promotions were criticized by many players as frustrating and unnatural/implausible. Maybe you were the first with horse units and have a tradition fighting with them from the bronce age on (chariot archers). Without swapping, you get no benefit if you want horsemen, better rebuild your army from scratch. That's frustrating in my books! Mongolia is even worse: You'd need new units with every new era, because they shift back and forth between ranged/melee. No chance to build experienced units (except you upgrade ChA -> Keshik, but that's hard since you lose your superiority during the classical era).

Why don't we leave the fun element and balance it on another front? Maybe we should talk about the general upgrading costs, why it's so low, or about upgrading paths. But please let us leave the parts of gameplay that are motivating and cool.

We also talked about chariot archers in the other thread. With move-after-attack, Thal created a highly interesting, but maybe a bit overpowered unit. I pointed that out some days ago myself! But I don't think this particular promotion is the thing to be changed here, it's what makes the unit unique and fun. Better change the price,strength or movement speed. The slinger promotion you mentioned would move the unit randomly, sometimes meaning a random death for an elite unit -> Balanced, but frustrating.

 

[Minor Annoyance]

Your balancing suggestions are very well-thought-out, Ahriman, but I have the fear that the result of them might be better balance, but less fun...

I for one don't like having to count up the levels of a unit and compare it to the number of promotions it has to see if I should delete and replace it rather than upgrade. Instant heal already lowers the value of a unit, I don't like having to count up "bad" promotions too.

Also there was an argument that upgrading a unit with bad promotions is still cheaper that buying/building a new one. But the maintenance cost adding up over the centuries is the same for both the good and the inferior promoted unit.

 

[Thalassicus]

@BomberEscort
Those changes are actually in the "automatic update" portion of buildings, rather than the tooltip, so I think it should be consistent with the latest patch changes. I'll double check to make sure, thank you for pointing it out.

@Ahriman
I think the point about crossbow/rifle realism is they're both designed to be cheap low-skilled troops. Just about anyone can pick up and learn how to use such weapons in a short period of time... compared to longbows or knights, for example, which were high-skilled and/or expensive.

The problem I discovered with crossbows to cannons is how they cross role boundaries. It's an issue when a force of 6 chu-ko-nu kill an army, then are 6 highly-promoted siege units, easily taking out the cities behind the army. In vanilla, basically the only choice is to delete the crossbows. As Minor Annoyance pointed out, the maintenance costs will be the same for either the bad experienced unit or the good inexperienced one.

It's not technically possible to individually control upgrade costs, that's formulas dependent upon relative cost of the two units. However, if you've played several games with these mods and feel a global increase in upgrade costs is justified, I'll do so.

 

[Ahriman]

@Tomice
Well, I think part of the problem is that different people have different ideas of fun.
For me, fun comes in part from a challenge, and from different strategic decisions that can be equally powerful. If chariot archers are very powerful, then that significantly reduces the value of other unit paths, including archers. If archers are too powerful, then the value of strategic resources are reduced, and the human advantage vs the AI is increased, since the advantage from the human player is larger with bombardment units than it is with melee units (particularly because the human can to unit placement and have ranged units on hills in a way that is massively more effective than the AI).
But other people might have different ideas of what they enjoy.

If chariot archers did have move-after attack, then they should have a low bombardment strength (maybe 5), so that they are basically skirmish units that can pepper and wear down an advancing foe rather than one that can easily and rapidly slaughter a large enemy army.

@Thallasicus
CKN kills any balance from crossbow->cannon. Good point. Longbow would be nearly as bad.
The only way to balance this would be to specifically remove the double-shot and range promotion on upgrade, but that would feel very arbitrary.

Still, how about removing promotions and resetting experience, is that possible?

That way, the new unit is no worse than a newly build unit, but it isn't severely overpowered either.

 

[Tomice]

@Tomice
Well, I think part of the problem is that different people have different ideas of fun.
For me, fun comes in part from a challenge, and from different strategic decisions that can be equally powerful. If chariot archers are very powerful, then that significantly reduces the value of other unit paths, including archers.

You understood me wrong. I'm all for balance and challenge. Please don't see me as CivRev dumbed-down kiddy Actually, to my big frustration, I turned 28 last weekend

If chariot archers did have move-after attack, then they should have a low bombardment strength (maybe 5), so that they are basically skirmish units that can pepper and wear down an advancing foe rather than one that can easily and rapidly slaughter a large enemy army.

That's exactly what I meant. There are many numbers that could be tweaked (cost, strength,...) while we keep the one thing that makes the unit unique and entertaining. Have you seen my suggestion (some hours ago) to make ChA a bit more expensive if they still prove too strong after Thal's recent nerf?

I admit this topic is the easiest to be solved, while promotion swapping and melee vs. archer - ratio are very complex balancing topics.

 

[Seek]

Another facet which could be considered is tech cost. If Archery were cheaper I would probably get it earlier. As it is, half the time I only tech it once it's down to 1-2 turns.

 

[Thalassicus]

That's a very interesting idea Seek. The biggest disadvantage of archers, for me, is the 10-20 turn delay for horses/swords.

 

[Tomice]

Another facet which could be considered is tech cost. If Archery were cheaper I would probably get it earlier. As it is, half the time I only tech it once it's down to 1-2 turns.

There are 2 early paths I usually choose from: Civil Service (farm yield + science/culture) or Engineering (mine yield/ lumbermills + military/happiness). Since the library nerf, I tend to think the lower path is stronger.

So if I go for Engineering, I usually take Iron Working and Construction (Colloseum) before taking Archery.

It's not only the delay of Swords, it's also that Archers are only strong IMHO if you have 3+ melee units defending them. Although with the reduced price/better strength they have in Thal's mod, they might be valuable on their own if the enemy has NO swords yet, only spearmen.

That's not even unrealistic, a Phalanx was very immobile and vulnerable to ranged weapons.

 

[Ahriman]

it's also that Archers are only strong IMHO if you have 3+ melee units defending them

I don't find this at all.
Its very easy to use archers when:
a) they're in your city, so they need no protection at all or
b) with ~2 units protecting them. ZoC ftw, combined with sensible exploitation of rivers, rough terrain, and hill ability to shoot over rough terrain.

I do find archery less important post-patch than pre-patch, but thats because the AI doesn't rush you when you found your second city, which it used to do at the highest difficulty levels, which made having an archer *really* valuable in the early game.

 

[sav]

I've got this installed with your balance combined mod, is there a simple, foolproof way to check if it has loaded? Civ4 had the mod names in the top right corner. Is there somewhere to check in Civ5?

 

[Thalassicus]

After installing, you'll need to enable it like other mods under Mods → Browse Mods. If everything has a check mark there, it's loaded. (I haven't encountered a situation where a mod can be checkmarked and not loaded.) Also, to play the game with mods you should use Mods → Single Player instead of the single player option on the main menu.

If you're encountering any odd issues, I'd recommend deleting your Civ V cache folder located here:

C:\<username>\Documents\My Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 5\cache

That folder stores temporary info for the game, and old data can sometimes causes strange stuff to happen if you change from one set of mods to another (or update mods to new versions). Deleting the folder will have no bad effects on the game, and will solve any problems related to the cache.

 

[Seek]

Another small inconsistency that could use a fix:
Public School tooltip indicates a GS slot, however in the last patch it was changed to get one GS GPP Point and this is true ingame.