[C3C] Combat overhaul mod

[md4]

Hello again,

I'm planning a fairly ambitious new mod (by my humble standards) which is going to completely overhaul the combat values of just about every unit in the game. One of the primary goals is to provide some more nuance—especially in the ancient era—where it's difficult to make minor adjustments when the smallest increment may as much as double combat capacity. As an illustration, I have made the humble Warrior's A/D values 3/2 (the Spearman is 4/6 for comparison), and everything scales up quickly from there.

A parallel goal is to put more distance between the various eras of naval vessels. I can't describe the sensation that descends upon me when my frigates routinely go down to galleys and curraghs.

My understanding is a bit shaky on how the values for Coastal Fortresses and SAM Batteries are concerned. I recall this reply to the Air Combat thread, which states that a unit's actual Air Defense Str value is 1/10th what is shown in the unit editor when calculated by the game. The same post suggests there is no tomfoolery behind the scenes with the SAM Battery's Air value of 8, in that it is simply applied to the bomber's Defense Str value in the normal way (A/(A+D)=% to win).

As for the Coastal Fortress, I'm a bit confused by its Civilopedia description and values found in the editor. Naval and Naval Bombard Def values, mainly:

• What confers the 50% defense bonus against naval attacks? Is that a mistake in the description or controlled by a property not visible to the editor?
• What does the Naval Bombard Def do exactly? Is it added to the defending unit's defense, or used to defend the city itself (against population loss or destroyed improvements)?

 

[Predator145]

Hello again,

I'm planning a fairly ambitious new mod (by my humble standards) which is going to completely overhaul the combat values of just about every unit in the game. One of the primary goals is to provide some more nuance—especially in the ancient era—where it's difficult to make minor adjustments when the smallest increment may as much as double combat capacity. As an illustration, I have made the humble Warrior's A/D values 3/2 (the Spearman is 4/6 for comparison), and everything scales up quickly from there.

A parallel goal is to put more distance between the various eras of naval vessels. I can't describe the sensation that descends upon me when my frigates routinely go down to galleys and curraghs.

My understanding is a bit shaky on how the values for Coastal Fortresses and SAM Batteries are concerned. I recall this reply to the Air Combat thread, which states that a unit's actual Air Defense Str value is 1/10th what is shown in the unit editor when calculated by the game. The same post suggests there is no tomfoolery behind the scenes with the SAM Battery's Air value of 8, in that it is simply applied to the bomber's Defense Str value in the normal way (A/(A+D)=% to win).

As for the Coastal Fortress, I'm a bit confused by its Civilopedia description and values found in the editor. Naval and Naval Bombard Def values, mainly:

• What confers the 50% defense bonus against naval attacks? Is that a mistake in the description or controlled by a property not visible to the editor?
• What does the Naval Bombard Def do exactly? Is it added to the defending unit's defense, or used to defend the city itself (against population loss or destroyed improvements)?

Naval attacks could be amphibious attacks as ships can't attack your units. Naval Bombard Def bolsters your building and pop def vs bombard (which is 12 by default I believe). Some people have mentioned that they felt marines bypass the city and metro defensive bonuses. I'm not sure if that's true or not.

Funny how I'm the opposite when it comes to tech advantage in combat. I'm modding naval unit's stats to close down the gap. The sudden power spike that destroyers have over ironclad and ironclad over frigates makes the game very limited and predictable. You're forced to play the same strat every game.

 

[md4]

Actually I realised the Civilopedia says nothing about a 50% bonus against naval attacks; this is mentioned only on the civilization.fandom.com wiki page, so I can probably disregard it.

Funny how I'm the opposite when it comes to tech advantage in combat. I'm modding naval unit's stats to close down the gap. The sudden power spike that destroyers have over ironclad and ironclad over frigates makes the game very limited and predictable. You're forced to play the same strat every game.

For me, in naval combat some degree of stratification is necessary in order to suspend disbelief, and the ratio you mention between Frigates, Ironclads and modern warships is about right. The Frigate just seems woefully underpowered against ancient era galleys.

 

[Civinator]

Actually I realised the Civilopedia says nothing about a 50% bonus against naval attacks; this is mentioned only on the civilization.fandom.com wiki page, so I can probably disregard it.

I agree to this statement. The building stands in a city and naval attacks (with the exception of the privateer bug) against cities are not possible. That building could be set to provide additional protection against land attacks by modding it in the editor, but this isn´t the setting for that building in unmodded Civ 3.

 

[Ozymandias]

Oh how memory fails ... ... @Civinator - Would you mind refreshing my memory about whatever the "Privateer Bug" is?

 

[md4]

It works like this: you build a privateer and if you park it in a city, AI ships will attack it in the city, declaring on you in the process. Even friendly AI's. Similar to the sub bug, build privateers at your own risk. If you do build them, never put them in port, unless you want war. It could be an exploit if used properly. Make a big gpt deal for a valued tech or cash, build a privateer in a port near that AI's shipping, and when they attack it, the deal is canceled.

https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/what-would-you-change-and-why.271539/page-4#post-6751536

I never knew about this either.

 

[Civinator]

Oh how memory fails ... ... @Civinator - Would you mind refreshing my memory about whatever the "Privateer Bug" is?

md4 was faster.

 

[Ozymandias]

md4 was faster.

Ah, to fresh new faces!

 

[md4]

After reading through most of the 26 page epic The Big Question - How Does The AI Choose Which Units To Build?, I have come to a dilemma of how to best balance the AI's late-game ship building tendencies away from just building nothing but battleships.

I had first thought to increase the costs of the heavier ships, so there is a diminishing return on cost:firepower, however it seems like the latest consensus was that the AI actually prefers expensive units over cheaper ones even if they are otherwise identical. My hope was to make battleships:

• significantly more powerful, so they can shrug off a destroyer more than 50% of the time
• significantly more expensive to justify this
• built far less in proportion destroyers and cruisers, which I wanted to make up the bulk of an AI fleet

However it seems like there is no "good" way of doing this. The closest I saw was one suggestion of having the battleships have less HP than destroyers/cruisers. I'd prefer not to do that as it seems quite silly.

 

[revenantlast]

The closest I saw was one suggestion of having the battleships have less HP than destroyers/cruisers. I'd prefer not to do that as it seems quite silly.

have you thought of making the HP low but the defense stat ridiculously high?

I don't know how this would effect the AI production, but i use this method for my tanks to differentiate from infantry units.
all my infantry have 1 def but huge HP and require a unit with small bombard attack but high ROF to defeat them , while tanks have no HP bonus but 20 def and need something with low ROF but really high bombard attack to defeat them.
when attacking each other, my tanks normal win (unless they are seriously out numbered) because their defense stops them losing any HP...you could use this set up to differentiate your battle ships from your other ships (unless the high defense effects production )

personally, I tend to use a 'naval command' small wonder to auto-produce my battle ships, to stop the AI only building them.
hope this helps.

 

[md4]

all my infantry have 1 def but huge HP and require a unit with small bombard attack but high ROF to defeat them , while tanks have no HP bonus but 20 def and need something with low ROF but really high bombard attack to defeat them.

The more I think about it, the more it sounds like an oddly elegant solution. I'll give it some more thought.

 

[Vuldacon]

The AI Loves Units with more Moves and Blitz. It is the Defense and Hit Point Settings that make a Unit Strong.

 

[revenantlast]

The more I think about it, the more it sounds like an oddly elegant solution. I'll give it some more thought.

I can't remember where I first read about this, but I'm sure it was on here, in a post relating to artillery.
I tested it and now I use it in most of my mods to represent Armour... to be honest it, seems like this was how they intended it to be set up, but someone forgot to put it in the game.

It takes a bit of balancing, but it allows you to create specialized artillery.
For reasons I don't fully understand, the high bombard-low ROF artillery doesn't hugely effect the infantry, but wipes out the tanks and vise-versa... i'm sure this could be useful for your ships bombard attack (maybe making subs the only ones that can destroy battleships?)
Also if I need to create defensive infantry (like say rifleman in the normal game) I just give them a lot more HP, so they tend to out live normal infantry, but still cant really damage the tanks.
The only downside is battles can last FOR AGES, so get used to watching animation!

 

[Ozymandias]

I'm appalled that I can't find the link to this, but here are some observations om2050 made some time ago -

Spoiler tom2050 On AI Naval Builds :

AI Naval Builds

Not to revive an old thread... but just to add something in here. It seems that as far as naval production goes, the AI seems to consider Naval Transports and Naval Carriers in a different light than Naval Powers. I don't have spreadsheets and stacks of data to back this up, but am fairly confident that this conclusion is correct.

I believe the AI considers (to some extent) the decision to build transports/carriers based partially or fully off w/e algorithm it uses for ground forces and air. It seems that when I have Build Often set for only navy; the AI built less transports than when it was set to navy, offensive and defensive ground units.

On the same note, on another test, initially build often was set to offensive and defensive ground, naval, and air. The AI rarely/occasionally built a naval carrier. When build often naval was removed (so offensive and defensive ground and air remained), the AI built 2-3x as many carriers as before.

As far as Naval Missle Transports go, I have no clue, done no testing with that. But this leads me to believe that "BUILD OFTEN NAVAL" is more for ships with ONLY "NAVAL POWER" selected. A simple test would be to have build never 'naval' turned on, and the AI should still build carriers and transports (I may try it to see). This may already be known, but I figured I would throw this out there.

So in essence, the point is, a good way to get a nation to perhaps build more NAVAL WARSHIPS is to simply allow it to be a transport also (for 1 troop) or (1 aircraft). Of course, it depends on the scenario if it is an option. For a pre-aircraft scenario, adding the ability to be a Naval carrier would effect nothing, but may make the AI build more of these ships anyways; and with build often AIR selected would increase this chance.

Tom AI Naval Targets

Also, just from observation, AI transports seem to attack (drop troops of at) small islands first before they will attack larger landmasses. The AI must assess landmass size as a part of a civ's strength.. because the AI will travel halfway around the world to reach a small island somewhere and attack there, instead of dropping troops off at a major continent right next door. So for instance on World Maps, if there is an enemy on an island anywhere, the AI will likely go there first, instead of attacking a enemy city on the mainland nextdoor. Of course, there are rare exceptions.. such as... The AI will judge defensive strength of that city, and if very weak, may attack the city on a larger landmass instead. The AI seems to know what a city's defensive strength is inherently, without having to see it (no surprise there).

This is somewhat of a problem for scenarios because there is not much of a way to get around it, since AI actions cannot be altered in any way.

So as far as I know, how AI determines where a transport will attack:
1. Defensive strength of units in a city, (number of units in city?).
2. Will go for smaller landmasses before larger ones (with all other things equal).

Tom It also seems that the AI considers hitpoints on a naval ship a huge deciding factor when it considers which to build.

Between these 2:
Ship 1 with: 11 Attack, 8 Defense, 8 MP, 12 hitpoints (cost 360)
Ship 2 with: 70 Attack, 62 Defense, 6 MP, 6 hitpoints (cost 800)

AI chose to build Ship #1 more often! Why? No one knows... AI probably places way too much emphasis on hitpoints. And since it was shown the AI likes more expensive ships, the reason it choose ship 1 is somewhat startling. The only thing it wins on is hitpoints and movement. They do both have the ability to carry 1 troop, both have bombard (Ship 1 has 7/1/2 - Ship 2 has 20/1/3).

If hitpoints are valued this much, it's likely it is the similar with ground units and air units, although I am unsure on this.

Tom

 

[md4]

I came across that post too! It was…somewhere. I've found some gems over the past couple of months but my bookmarking game is not strong. There was another one which detailed the order in which naval stacks defended against certain attacks (bombard, direct attack, and possibly air bombardment if there was a difference there due to the Air Defense Str value) but for the life of me I can't find which thread it was in.

 

[Ozymandias]

Naval Air Defense versus Bombers?

 

[md4]

That was the one! I had forgotten about the Civ3 - Tutorials, Reference, & Guides subforum and was looking in the main Customisation section only.

 

[Lord Malbeth]

This is a minor thing--and I'm not even sure if its even under the umbrella of things you're tinkering with--but giving armies a 10 HP bonus and allowing only one unit to be loaded into them drastically improves the AIs use of them.

 

[Predator145]

have you thought of making the HP low but the defense stat ridiculously high?

I don't know how this would effect the AI production, but i use this method for my tanks to differentiate from infantry units.
all my infantry have 1 def but huge HP and require a unit with small bombard attack but high ROF to defeat them , while tanks have no HP bonus but 20 def and need something with low ROF but really high bombard attack to defeat them.
when attacking each other, my tanks normal win (unless they are seriously out numbered) because their defense stops them losing any HP...you could use this set up to differentiate your battle ships from your other ships (unless the high defense effects production )

personally, I tend to use a 'naval command' small wonder to auto-produce my battle ships, to stop the AI only building them.
hope this helps.

How does ROF work in conjunction with bombard strength? The way I understand it something with bombard strength of 8 and ROF of 3 would have roughly the same firepower as bombard strengh 12 ROF 2 with the difference being the chance of hitting more times at the expensive of less defensive bombard. If so the high ROF artillery would hit your tanks just as hard on the offensive bombard. But at least tanks will be able to shrug off the defensive bombard easily while being hit by high bombard strength anti tank guns. High HP infantry won't mind losing 1 HP from the high bombard 1 ROF AT Guns while fearing high ROF HE artillery. The only problem I see with incorporating high HP infantry is that the human player would still concentrate artillery fire to redline everything. And the defensive stat of these infantry units being much lower means the bombardment crafty human would take them out even more easily while the AI just can't.

 

[revenantlast]

The way I understand it something with bombard strength of 8 and ROF of 3 would have roughly the same firepower as bombard strengh 12 ROF 2

That is probably true, but you have to drastically change the 'vanilla' stats to get this to work.
The 'rocket artillery' is set to have a bombard strength of 100, but a rate of fire of 2.
The 'artillery gun' is set up to have a bombard strength of 3, but a rate of fire of 11.

If so the high ROF artillery would hit your tanks just as hard on the offensive bombard.

As I say, I don't fully understand the mechanics of it (I'm sure someone else on here will ) but in practice...

The high ROF artillery nearly always fails to damage the tanks even 1 Hp (they have a base of 3HP and 31DEF)
While they nearly always take 4-8 off the infantry (they have a base of 16HP and 1DEF.)

The low ROF artillery nearly always takes 2HP from both the tanks and infantry... which for the tanks leaves them 1HP but the infantry with 14HP.

In terms of defensive bombard, the guns never really seem to damage the tanks, while rockets can and will damage everything. I suspect (but i don't know) that the 'chance to hit' checks the bombard strength vs the defense stat... so it doesn't seem to matter how many times it tries (ROF?), if the Defense is high enough the artillery just wont hit.

To get around the AI, I actually have the artillery set to 'stealth attack' the units I want them to be effective against.
This SEEMS to encourage them to aim the guns at the infantry, and the rockets at the tanks, but i need to test this part more... and as for those pesky humans players, I don't give them rockets until later in the game.
So when tanks appear they are almost unstoppable (if you have the resources and production to actually build one )
Then rockets become available, and suddenly your tanks HP gets smashed before they can attack!

Hope this helps!