Conquest Editor

[TexasJim]

Hi to all. I’m new to this board, but have been playing Civ for years.

Anyway, I have yet to play Civ4, but I got the Conquests expansion for Christmas. All in all I like it, but there were some things I wanted to change. Here’s what I did with the editor:

All bombardment units now have lethal land/sea bombardment. (I think it was a mistake for them not to do it like this in the first place). Increased Korean Hwach’a bombardment level 9, lowered cost to 35.

Changed Berserker- 5/2/1 cost: 60 (He was too strong).

War Elephant attack power increased by one. Now requires Ivory to build.

Gallic Swordsman cost is 30 and does not upgrade to Medieval Infantry (like the other sword units).

That’s all I have. Let me know what you think.

 

[TexasJim]

I guess this is really basic stuff for most of you. I guess nobody really cares...

 

[The Last Conformist]

FWIW, I think making the War Elephant require Ivory is screwing the Indians.

 

[Bjornlo]

There are literally 100's of mods. For ideas on what you might like to change, consider downloading a few of them and comparing your vision vs. theirs.

 

[frekk]

The Berserker is pretty powerful for the time period he's in, but he's also very expensive to build at that point.

And what Conformist said about needing Ivory for elephants. It would be ok in a designed map, though.

Lethal sea bombardment is quite realistic, but I don't like lethal land bombardment personally. Artillery isn't used to wipe out whole divisions - it's used for suppression. It isn't possible to do in Civ3, but if I had my way, artillery would do some minor damage but in addition cause a -1 for 1 round to attack, defence, and movement, to simulate suppression.

I agree about raising the cost for the Gallic swordsman though - that unit is overpowered imo.

 

[Plotinus]

Artillery does need fixing in some way, though - perhaps by making it significantly cheaper, or more powerful. Most artillery units just aren't powerful enough to be worth building, because you need such a stack for them to be effective. It's only when you get to the modern Artillery unit that they become useful (and devastating), partly because of the strength, and partly because by this stage you've accumulated enough of the damn things.

 

[Bjornlo]

I found playing with the ROF helps. The unit can bombard once per ROF. So while a catapult is likely to miss you completely, this allows for the "lucky" shot which puts a serious hurt on the unit in question. The other thing you can do is on selective artillay give them a higher bombard value and a range of zero, for those types of artillary better at point defense then assult. Give them a low defensive rating if you want, and consider giving them "requires escourt". It also helps to change the AI from bombard to defense for this sort of unit.

I use machine guns in a similar way to artillary. Low bombard value, high ROF. Makes for good suppression fire. I also give them zone of control. I only wish I could use the ROF & lower value as a defensive value... instead I give them a medium defensive rating. (90%-95% of comparible infantry).

One mod I found to be very good, and very time consuming to implement is the variable rate of movement for the various naval units and allowing them to ignore the movement cost in their prefered environment. For example, a battleship must move very slowly if it is too close to shore. Similarly a riverboat would have to take it slow and careful in the open sea.

 

[The Last Conformist]

On larger maps, it's not hard to build a stack of catapults large enough to be devastating.

 

[TexasJim]

I don't think it's screwing the Indians over at all. Most Knight units require two resources (Iron and Horses) to build. Making the War Elephant require Ivory- is only one resource (since you don't need Iron or Horses). So not only does my Elephant have higher stats than a Knight, recieves an extra HP (by conquest default), but also requires less resources- I'd say the Indians are getting a deal.

Actually I lowered the cost of the Gallic Swordsman.

Here's why:

Swordsman 3/2/1 cost: 30
Immortal 4/2/1 (extra off. power) cost: 30
Legionaire 3/3/1 (extra def. power) cost: 30
Gallic Swordsman 3/2/2 (extra mobility) cost: 40

Those are the original stats. The last one doesnt make sense. One extra mobility point for a special unit should not equal extra cost, and it doesn't except for this example. (See Jaguar Warrior, Conquest version of Zulu Impi, etc.)

About the Berserk: 5 is plenty of attack points for him, especialy when he has extra defense and Amphibious attack. I did lower his cost to make it even, I thought he was fairly priced, just too powerful of a unit too soon in the game.

I like the bombardment rule. I think if any unit is down to one hit point or so, you should be able to kill them this way. Yeah, bombardment is used to suppress, I agree, but you suppress them enough and they're going to wind up dead sooner or later. Admit it.

 

[The Omega]

Well, if you look at historical battles, like Stalingrad, no matter how much artillery was used, it never would completely wipe out all resistence, and since units in civ3 represent about a division, there's no way masses of artillery would be able to destroy an entire division.

 

[The Last Conformist]

I don't think it's screwing the Indians over at all. Most Knight units require two resources (Iron and Horses) to build. Making the War Elephant require Ivory- is only one resource (since you don't need Iron or Horses). So not only does my Elephant have higher stats than a Knight, recieves an extra HP (by conquest default), but also requires less resources- I'd say the Indians are getting a deal.

Not all resources are equal - Iron and Horses are all over the map, while Ivory usually is only found in couple areas. It's much more likely to not have any Ivory nearby than to lack either Iron or Horses.

This assuming, of course, that you haven't fiddled with the appearance ratios for the resources.

 

[Bjornlo]

@TexasJim,
I think you missed the point of how powerful movement is. Think of the gallic swordsman not as an expensive swordsman, but a cheap early-era knight that doesn't require the somewhat rare horse.

With mobility, you need fewer troops. They can respond to threats better.
Your units are far more dangerous since they can strike deep and fast.

 

[TexasJim]

From my experience, Ivory is just as abundant as Iron or Horses. Maybe not as spread out on the map, but if anything I think the extra hit point they get evens it out.

If mobility is so great, then why doesn't the cost of other special units with (only 1 point of) added mobility go up? The reason they have extra cost is because they can upgade to medieval infantry on top of that. I lowered the cost because I got rid of the upgrade option (because no other swordsman has that ability).

I had to do the artillery thing... Why should the Korean Hwach'a have lethal land/sea bombardment when, say, radar artillery has neither?

Anyway, maybe it didn't happen that way at Stalingrad, but it could have.

 

[The Last Conformist]

Quite wrong - regular Swordsmen and Legionaries do upgrade to Medieval Infantry.

The Jaguar Warrior was upped in cost (to 15s) in C3C precisely because extra movement is so powerful. For Ansar Warriors and Riders, it's less of an upgrade because they are already fast units.

Realism aside, lethal land bombardment on Artillery is game-breaking, as you should quickly find out.

 

[TexasJim]

It didn't say that in the Civlopedia, but maybe it was because I was playing as the Celts... What about the Immortals though, do they upgrade? I know they have the same stats as the medeival infantry, but that'd really be unfair to Persia if they didn't upgrade at all.

Isn't it kind of unfair the H'chaw'a is the only artillery unit with Lethal Bombardment, especialy when it's not even very modern?

I think the attack power of the War Elephant needs to be increased, but it's already a very good unit- Making Ivory a necessary resource just makes sense... Doesn't it?

 

[Quinzy]

no, immortals do not, because they ARE med. inf, just earlier, and so upgrade to guirrella, the same as med inf.
as for elephants, the fact that they require no resources is the uniquness. and ivory is waaay too rare compared to horses or iron. horses appear on grassland, plains, and hills. iron appear on hills and mountains. ivory appears on plains and jungle. jungle is too rare compared to hills or mountains or grassland. and it rarely appears on plains.

 

[TexasJim]

Don't be mad just because you didn't think of it.

 

[Quinzy]

dude, i have thought of it. then i realised that ivory appears on plains a max of 8 times on a huge map, and about 2 times in forest/jungle.
now compare to horses: 12 times on a map, and its spread out more, not just in the middle of the map.
Iron: 15 times on a map, and once again, more spread, so its everywhere, not just in the middle.

 

[TexasJim]

How can India can make War Elephants without Ivory? Where do they get the elephants from? Maybe if you added a Cloning technology they could somehow biochemically engineer them in the modern era, but what good would that do you?

Heres the solution: You make the (Ivory required) War Elephant available to everyone- like in Civ2. India's new special unit will be the "Nonviolent Resister" they'll have no attack or defensive value- but will be historicly acurate. While we're at I'm going to take away the French Musketeer, as it (is only based upon the fiction of Alexander Dumas and) has no historical accuracy whatsoever. France will not have a special unit. They will instead gain bonuses when bartering peace treaties, surrendering, and being total douche bags.

 

[Red Door]

How can India can make War Elephants without Ivory? Where do they get the elephants from? Maybe if you added a Cloning technology they could somehow biochemically engineer them in the modern era, but what good would that do you?

Heres the solution: You make the (Ivory required) War Elephant available to everyone- like in Civ2. India's new special unit will be the "Nonviolent Resister" they'll have no attack or defensive value- but will be historicly acurate. While we're at I'm going to take away the French Musketeer, as it (is only based upon the fiction of Alexander Dumas and) has no historical accuracy whatsoever. France will not have a special unit. They will instead gain bonuses when bartering peace treaties, surrendering, and being total douche bags.

What the hell? So we should just royally screw France and India is the @$$ because India happened to get where they are because they had a peaceful revolution. Really, they're people that have fought many wars. They've had 3 with Pakistan. France is very into war also. Think Hundred Years War, Algeria, French and Indian wars.

You're one of the many problems with Americans, you're ignorant.

BTW, I don't know if you're American and I'm sorry if you aren't, but I guessed you were because of your name, TexasJim.