Could this be added to AND?

[Killtech]

hmm... you know what? that even makes sense. limiting the scout to one movement point alone is stupid as this just kills the purpose of this unit. but if early military cannot lift fog of war it is naturally restricted to the area surrounding the cities thus the scout has a purpose again. an early classic tech would set visual range for military to normal level and as scouts are replaced by explorers their movement speed is reset the default 2 movement points.

 

[The Rusty Gamer]

I created a little MOD for testing. The scout movement is reduced to one but that doesn't slow it down much. It still move two spaces through a forest after it gets double movement. Go figure. I don't think it is quite calculating movement as one would expect.

However, I made warriors, workers and settlers unable to reveal the unknown world. This has definitely slowed the whole thing down in the first stages. You have to build scouts, which you can't necessarily build at first, in order to explore, or later military units like archers.

Only thing - at the start, you can't really move the starting settler to look for a possible better location, so you have to take the immediate surrounding area to settle.

Warriors can be seen as just defenders of the locally owned area then.

Interesting that the bNoRevealMapb flag hasn't been used at all in the standard game but wasn't included in the original Civ 4. Presumably it was requested or has been used for a scenario somewhere.

I also made the scout to have no nationality but that didn't stop the first encountered nation from contacting us. Guess it doesn't work properly or as I expected.

You could make just about every non-scout unit limited to revealed land. That would be interesting. So then you would build lots of scouts I guess, but you could increase the maintenance points for them from 1 to (say) 2.

 

[Killtech]

i explore usually with javelinman - mostly to harvest XP from barbarians and animals. so this no exploration should apply to them too. or better for every military unit until a certain tech. but i do not think settlers should have that handicap. you won't use them for exploration since they are a bit too expensive to risk.

a hypothetical question: how would the game change if all military units (except recon or special promotion) didn't have exploration (see just the plot they stand on) possibility. you would need to rely on scout to use your war machinery outside your borders. would there be a problem with AI or does it ignore map exploration and visibility aspects anyway?

 

[Afforess]

would there be a problem with A

The AI cheat when it comes to visibility. They can see the largest value of either line of sight, or movement, away from them. So even with 0 line of sight, and 1 movement, they would be able to see tiles around them.

 

[Killtech]

but AI won't be able to contact you even if its worrier stand next to mine worrier, will it?

 

[The Rusty Gamer]

Is there a line of sight variable in the unit XML? I haven't been able to find it. I'm curious to know what would happen if some early units (like a warrior) had it set to 0.

If a settler doesn't have the exploration handicap, particularly at the start of the game because it can't move to a better site to start and has to plonk down wherever it is, then reducing its line of sight to 0 might be interesting. Also, does a settler have to have as much as 2 movement points?

 

[Lord Brooks]

I love the idea of Civs losing contact unless a unit(acting as an emissary) is in close proximity or their borders are within range of each other.

The unit restrictions on discovering terrain is a great idea too, unless your units have a reconnaissance promotion (representing a scouting/ranger detachment) or you build scouts or explorers then you can't explore further than already discovered terrain.

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

I love the idea of Civs losing contact unless a unit(acting as an emissary) is in close proximity or their borders are within range of each other.

The unit restrictions on discovering terrain is a great idea too, unless your units have a reconnaissance promotion (representing a scouting/ranger detachment) or you build scouts or explorers then you can't explore further than already discovered terrain.

Great! . Now you will be able to attack other civs with out them being able to relatiate because they will need a recon unit to find you.

Bad - not all civs start with the ability to build recon units so they are going to be at a huge disadvantage at the start of the game. They will not be able to get goody huts until they first research hunting.

 

[The Rusty Gamer]

Great! . Now you will be able to attack other civs with out them being able to relatiate because they will need a recon unit to find you.

Just had a crazy idea. How about...if you kill another civ's scout, or they kill one of yours, there is a possiblity that they will "spill the beans" under interogation before they die, giving some of their civ's map? That would give some risk to having a scout at the beginning and map knowledge will be more potentially dangerous.

Great! . Now you will be able to attack other civs with out them being able to relatiate because they will need a recon unit to find you.

Bad - not all civs start with the ability to build recon units so they are going to be at a huge disadvantage at the start of the game. They will not be able to get goody huts until they first research hunting.

You can stll get goody huts if they are within the range of your known world, just not the best result.

 

[Sonereal]

Just had a crazy idea. How about...if you kill another civ's scout, or they kill one of yours, there is a possiblity that they will "spill the beans" under interogation before they die, giving some of their civ's map?

If they're carrying a map, why not just take the map?

 

[The Rusty Gamer]

Sure, but is the program clever enough to only give the map information that specifc scout discovered?

 

[Lord Brooks]

Great! . Now you will be able to attack other civs with out them being able to relatiate because they will need a recon unit to find you.

That's a possibility, it'll certainly add to the realism of early wars though, look at the Viking Raids in Europe as a classic example of the people being terrorized and only knowing that the raiders came from the North, Vikings where the classic Warrior Explorers. There might need to be a new building though, a reconnaisance post or hunting lodge or something similar available with maybe hunting that allows all units built there to get the recon promotion, a later tech might make it obsolete so all units can automatically explore, though I like the idea of restricting it until a while after Conquistadors?

Bad - not all civs start with the ability to build recon units so they are going to be at a huge disadvantage at the start of the game. They will not be able to get goody huts until they first research hunting.

The whole idea is to slow down early contact/exploration so it's a minor set back and currently civs that start with an early scout get penalised in my opinion as a warrior generally outsurvives a scout anyway and once it's won a couple of battles, with the right promotions becomes a better scout anyway, currently putting civ's that start with a scout at a disadvantage.

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

That's a possibility, it'll certainly add to the realism of early wars though, look at the Viking Raids in Europe as a classic example of the people being terrorized and only knowing that the raiders came from the North, Vikings where the classic Warrior Explorers. There might need to be a new building though, a reconnaisance post or hunting lodge or something similar available with maybe hunting that allows all units built there to get the recon promotion, a later tech might make it obsolete so all units can automatically explore, though I like the idea of restricting it until a while after Conquistadors?

Recon is a type of unit not a promotion.

 

[Lord Brooks]

Recon is a type of unit not a promotion.

Currently it's a type of unit, my suggestion was so that normal units could still explore they would need a 'recon' promotion that works like a 'ranger regimental recon detachment' as part of the overall unit. In order to get the 'recon' promotion they would either add it through EXP or by being built in a city with the 'hunters lodge/reconnaisance post' building.

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

Currently it's a type of unit, my suggestion was so that normal units could still explore they would need a 'recon' promotion that works like a 'ranger regimental recon detachment' as part of the overall unit. In order to get the 'recon' promotion they would either add it through EXP or by being built in a city with the 'hunters lodge/reconnaisance post' building.

Well that would probably break my Subdue Animal mod so I "agin" it.

 

[Sonereal]

Currently it's a type of unit, my suggestion was so that normal units could still explore they would need a 'recon' promotion that works like a 'ranger regimental recon detachment' as part of the overall unit. In order to get the 'recon' promotion they would either add it through EXP or by being built in a city with the 'hunters lodge/reconnaisance post' building.

Which completly eliminates the purpose of Scouts and Explorers in the first place, mainly, to be non-combat units that move very fast and can move through a country with Rite of Passage (unlike other combat units).

Plus, the reason why certain units wouldn't be recons should be clear. Scouts are light, travel fast, and do their own thing. A butch of warriors on the otherhand.....

 

[Killtech]

Which completly eliminates the purpose of Scouts and Explorers in the first place, mainly, to be non-combat units that move very fast and can move through a country with Rite of Passage (unlike other combat units).

Plus, the reason why certain units wouldn't be recons should be clear. Scouts are light, travel fast, and do their own thing. A butch of warriors on the otherhand.....

well, no. you forgot that there are two different things: view range and movement speed. while the scout units would gain movement upgrade via a tech and have a usual 1 plot view range, a default military unit would have zero view distance. so a recon promotion would only allow it to move around without a recon unit. otherwise it's blind.

to sum up: recon units became definitively much more important while a additional 'recon' promotion would allow military to move WITHOUT a recon unit.

hmm.. maybe in that case recon units should not be counted towards units per tile maximum.

 

[The Rusty Gamer]

Actually, I did an investigation and, as far as I can tell, all units start with a visual range of 1. Scouts can be promoted to 2. Unfortunately, you cannot currently set the initial value of individual units for this value. They all start off the same. You can change the global value for all units however, not that that helps much. I tried it at 0 and it certainly gave limited vision but what we really want is to set units individually.

 

[Sonereal]

well, no. you forgot that there are two different things: view range and movement speed. while the scout units would gain movement upgrade via a tech and have a usual 1 plot view range, a default military unit would have zero view distance. so a recon promotion would only allow it to move around without a recon unit. otherwise it's blind.

to sum up: recon units became definitively much more important while a additional 'recon' promotion would allow military to move WITHOUT a recon unit.

hmm.. maybe in that case recon units should not be counted towards units per tile maximum.

Ah, I see now.

 

[The Rusty Gamer]

We've been informed that visual range will be able to be set for each individual unit in 1.74.