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deathpickle
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I like the changes to archers, I think it's good to put them in a role of poke, and have them be completely horsehockey in melee; This puts ranged units in a supporting role, and leaves melee units to be the real stars of the battle which is how it ought to be.
It makes sense for archers to be so weak against melee as they can be placed somewhere safe behind your army, but 1 range units cannot be protected behind your army. 1 range units are effectively front line units, and as a result need to have enough combat strength to survive, or else no one will use them outside of garrisons and other niche high defense locations. I feel a 1 range unit should generally speaking be at about equal footing to a melee unit. Due to it's low defensive strength, it has a weakness being easy to focus down, so it's not like it doesn't have meaningful weakness, or unique game play from melee units.
Also the -5 strength causes problems with slingers as they get 0 strength, which makes them unable to gain exp. I'm currently modifying the mod so that it puts them back to normal strength.
Another thing that I don't like is that ranged/siege units are too weak against city bombardment, meaning siege weapons get focused down and destroyed before they can even land a single hit.
I propose that you reduce city bombardment damage vs ranged/siege class units by 10. It would be an effective and precise balance update, although city bombardment might be better off being reduced entirely, particularly in the late game when it's free and every city has it.
My last preposition is to make military engineers also act as siege towers as well.
Cheers, I love this mod btw
It makes sense for archers to be so weak against melee as they can be placed somewhere safe behind your army, but 1 range units cannot be protected behind your army. 1 range units are effectively front line units, and as a result need to have enough combat strength to survive, or else no one will use them outside of garrisons and other niche high defense locations. I feel a 1 range unit should generally speaking be at about equal footing to a melee unit. Due to it's low defensive strength, it has a weakness being easy to focus down, so it's not like it doesn't have meaningful weakness, or unique game play from melee units.
Also the -5 strength causes problems with slingers as they get 0 strength, which makes them unable to gain exp. I'm currently modifying the mod so that it puts them back to normal strength.
Another thing that I don't like is that ranged/siege units are too weak against city bombardment, meaning siege weapons get focused down and destroyed before they can even land a single hit.
I propose that you reduce city bombardment damage vs ranged/siege class units by 10. It would be an effective and precise balance update, although city bombardment might be better off being reduced entirely, particularly in the late game when it's free and every city has it.
My last preposition is to make military engineers also act as siege towers as well.
Cheers, I love this mod btw
Littlebob86
Prince
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Awesome!
Are your mods on steam??? And are you only updating this one.. Yours and tcs mods made me enjoy the game.. Haven't played it since
Are your mods on steam??? And are you only updating this one.. Yours and tcs mods made me enjoy the game.. Haven't played it since
Littlebob86
Prince
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Yo legend! Thank you!
Atlas627
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I made one small edit to your mod in all the time I've been playing with it. I made range 2 units have -7 combat strength and range 1 units have -4 combat strength. This solves the slinger problem and also I think is overall better, as I think ranged units were made a little too weak before.
Personally I would also take another look at the promotions. I nearly always take +cs vs melee rather than +cs vs ranged (as ranged), and +cs vs naval rather than +movement (as ships), but that may be just me.
In my own mod I boosted the strength of Galleys and Quadriremes since there seemed no other reason for early navy, but there may be a better way to fix that.
I'm excited to see what you do!
Personally I would also take another look at the promotions. I nearly always take +cs vs melee rather than +cs vs ranged (as ranged), and +cs vs naval rather than +movement (as ships), but that may be just me.
In my own mod I boosted the strength of Galleys and Quadriremes since there seemed no other reason for early navy, but there may be a better way to fix that.
I'm excited to see what you do!
Atlas627
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1) I approve of renaming to Shock. Doesn't help if we don't redo all of the vanilla tooltips, though (and other mods). Is there something wrong with Ranged?
2) I would leave the generic units names the same. If you make them too fancy people will think they're unique units, and in fact the new names may clash with other mods.
3) Keep in mind that Archers recently got a cost nerf.
4) Keep in mind that City Defense is based on the strongest melee (ships count too, I think mounted too) unit the defender has *ever* built.
5) If you make resources a combat boost/penalty, what is the benefit of the Encampment? Currently it allows you to build units with only 1 resource instead of 2, and it feels like an appropriate ability both for the district system and the unit system.
6) I like the idea of making Mounted units more expensive to maintain, though idk if they need a cost nerf. Production is already super scarce in this game, and that effects all parts of the game.
7) I would suggest making all late game offense much stronger than late game defense. Currently there is barely any reason to war late game. There are heavy diplomatic penalties and war weariness, you don't have much time to get a benefit out of the war, late game units are super expensive to build, and time is running out to bother researching and producing units when there are victory conditions to be achieved. By making siege, tanks, bombers, and helicopters stronger, you can open up a window where a blitzkreig is not just possible, but *profitable*. Of course Bazookas should be able to hold their own, but this is why no +anti-cav production policy exists.
8) Keep in mind that Horsemen/Swordsmen/Knights/Cavalry all use the same 2 resources which are revealed early in the game and can thus be planned around. This basically does not happen for the rest of the game. Since resourced units are thus harder to come by for the rest of the game, I would suggest proportionally increasing the late-game resourced advantage over the Shock/Anti-Cav/Ranged units.
2) I would leave the generic units names the same. If you make them too fancy people will think they're unique units, and in fact the new names may clash with other mods.
3) Keep in mind that Archers recently got a cost nerf.
4) Keep in mind that City Defense is based on the strongest melee (ships count too, I think mounted too) unit the defender has *ever* built.
5) If you make resources a combat boost/penalty, what is the benefit of the Encampment? Currently it allows you to build units with only 1 resource instead of 2, and it feels like an appropriate ability both for the district system and the unit system.
6) I like the idea of making Mounted units more expensive to maintain, though idk if they need a cost nerf. Production is already super scarce in this game, and that effects all parts of the game.
7) I would suggest making all late game offense much stronger than late game defense. Currently there is barely any reason to war late game. There are heavy diplomatic penalties and war weariness, you don't have much time to get a benefit out of the war, late game units are super expensive to build, and time is running out to bother researching and producing units when there are victory conditions to be achieved. By making siege, tanks, bombers, and helicopters stronger, you can open up a window where a blitzkreig is not just possible, but *profitable*. Of course Bazookas should be able to hold their own, but this is why no +anti-cav production policy exists.
8) Keep in mind that Horsemen/Swordsmen/Knights/Cavalry all use the same 2 resources which are revealed early in the game and can thus be planned around. This basically does not happen for the rest of the game. Since resourced units are thus harder to come by for the rest of the game, I would suggest proportionally increasing the late-game resourced advantage over the Shock/Anti-Cav/Ranged units.
thecrazyscot
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I quite like the look of your changes. A few comments:
- I would also leave the generic unit names to avoid clashes with potential UUs.
- I strongly support making resources a combat boost instead of required to build a unit. I used that in the old version of my Omnibus mod and had plans to update that component, but if you are going to include it I see no reason to do the same @Atlas627 , the Encampment can still be useful by making its buildings provide extra production towards units (I do this with my Better City Specializations mod), plus don't forget the experience bonus units trained in an Encampment receive.
- I also think that at least the late game Heavy Cav should be buffed, in fact I think they should be the strongest units in the game, stronger than Mechanized Infantry. Modern Armor are still effectively countered by Bazookas.
- I would also leave the generic unit names to avoid clashes with potential UUs.
- I strongly support making resources a combat boost instead of required to build a unit. I used that in the old version of my Omnibus mod and had plans to update that component, but if you are going to include it I see no reason to do the same
@Atlas627 , the Encampment can still be useful by making its buildings provide extra production towards units (I do this with my Better City Specializations mod), plus don't forget the experience bonus units trained in an Encampment receive.- I also think that at least the late game Heavy Cav should be buffed, in fact I think they should be the strongest units in the game, stronger than Mechanized Infantry. Modern Armor are still effectively countered by Bazookas.
Atlas627
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I don't believe the Encampment itself provides xp bonuses. You have to invest *even more* production into a Barracks/Stable, and usually it is better to just pump out more units until later in the game when the Barracks/Stable is much cheaper than a unit.
As for it providing extra production towards units, I suppose that is an option. City-states already give this bonus and I still don't often think an Encampment is worth it (unless playing multiplayer, in which case a walled Encampment on a hill is often critical just for defense, but that's still only *one* Encampment).
I don't really want to change how resources work, but if you were to do so I recommend attaching a weakened (10%) culture version of the Basilikoi Paides to Encampments.
All good points. Thank you for taking the time to read my rant, much appreciated
- Changing all the tool tips will be a pain, maybe this can be automated through sql in some way? I am worried about potential conflicts with other mods too, not sure how to work around this...
I don't know if sql will let you do a find and replace on individual words inside the actual content. I'm also not sure exactly how load order works, but you should be able to cover most mods if you figure out a way to automate.
Fair enough. I would say to call them "Bombardment" class, but that might confuse people with the "Bombard Strength" Siege units have. I suppose you could change Bombard Strength to Siege strength, but then you still enter people-confused-by-not-vanilla again. "Shooter" class? "Projectile" class? "Rear" class?
I'm not necessarily talking about people who have warred all game. Nor am I talking about whether or not the attacker can have an advantage over the defender if they really want to invest everything into it. I'm talking about whether the advantage is easy enough to get that its worth warring at all late-game. The rewards are simply not there (unless you're going for Domination).
Perhaps I'm wording this poorly. War in Civ is the only mechanic in which two players successfully competing puts them both behind everyone else. All race mechanics make one player stronger and the other weaker, but some of the race mechanics (like Great People, or settling land) still put the runner-up ahead of everyone who didn't try (usually). War is not like this. If you just barely win a war, you end up behind every other player except the one you defeated. You have to crush a war to end up with a net gain. This means attackers want to build overwhelmingly huge armies and defenders want to build barely enough to not lose the war (so they fall behind as little as possible).
For defenders to be able to hold out without wasting as much resources as attackers, they must have a bonus to defending. In Civ, we have extra healing in home territory, the ability to build forts and encampments and city bombardment, the ability to place our cities in hard to reach places, and combat boosts (defense advantage, support bonuses).
For attackers to be willing to build up a significantly stronger force and risk falling behind, the rewards must be either easy to obtain or tremendous. In Civ6 we have good pillage yields for when your army is strong enough to raid but not strong enough to conquer, and of course you can conquer a civ and gain its lands even if they aren't optimized in the way you would want them.
However, wars costs/benefits change throughout the game. Diplomatic penalties and war weariness discourage attacks late game, pillage yields become insignificant, conquering doesn't give you much time to use the lands, and victory by other means becomes possible. These all add up to make attacking lategame unthinkable except for Domination.
So yes, for a Domination player, lategame war is still worthwhile. They have probably been warring all game and have promotions, and they are clearly willing to risk everything to pump out some more units. Corps and Armies allow them to put even more production onto the front lines.
I'm not saying everyone should have a reason to go to war, nor am I saying that the costs/benefits should change very much from how they are in vanilla. It is interesting to have both costs and benefits shift throughout the game. But I do think that the ratio of the two overall has to stay even, so that sometimes enough of the benefits line up and sometimes all of the costs line up, and it changes your decision. Currently the only way the benefits outweigh the costs is if you are literally winning the game.
I would prefer in this case to lower the costs of war to match rather than to increase the benefits (the only one we can really buff is pillage yields). The costs are opportunity cost of not going for some other victory (should stay, since if it is lowered enough then everyone will always war lategame; victory is the most important goal), diplomatic penalties and war weariness (should stay, since it contrasts with early game), and then the cost of the actual army itself in turns spent moving/attacking/building. If you lower build costs, it benefits attackers and defenders. If you increase moves, that honestly might do more for defenders because they won't have carpets of doom blocking the movement.
But because we have units that are more often used to attack and others that are more often used to defend, we can buff attackers and leave defenders alone! Buff the units that need resources (Tanks/Bombers/Helicopters/Artillery) and are mainly good for attacking, and also give the defenders and option that works decently (buff the Bazooka. Can you make it a ranged unit that also gets the anti-cavalry bonus?).
Ok, sorry for the longwinded explanation.
Spearmen only work on defense, which honestly I'm fine with. Horsemen should rule the open terrain. Making them have more upkeep and production cost will help.
I suggested above making the Bazooka a ranged unit with anti-cavalry bonuses. If this make the Bazooka have too much of a weakness then don't bother. Perhaps the counter to Modern Armor can be in the skies? We have fighters and bombers, but I don't know if anybody builds either because they require an Aerodrome. I made fighters not require an Aerodrome in my mod so they can be used on defense without much investment. Maybe let fighters take down Modern Armor, but that lets attackers use bombers so the defender has to choose?
Since the AI are allowed to upgrade their units even if they don't grab the resource, it helps them a lot. Is there some way to allow upgrades without the resource (but take a huge penalty to strength) but still keep building to needing resources (or Encampments)?
I like this idea, but keep in mind the specific techs these unlock at. Muskets always seem to come late for me, but it may be due to the way Niter is placed on the tree too. Honestly, I often consider rushing Cavalry just because I already know where the Horses are anyway, and currently there's no Anti-Cavalry at that time.
As for it moving 3 unlocks to Renaissance and having only 2 at Industrial, that seems weird to me. I think Moar Units adds a Rifleman in Industrial so I won't notice (and a Lancer in Renaissance I think, doing what you're trying to do here).
Perhaps what you could do instead of this change is to make the Explorer (recon, unlocks in Renaissance I think) more powerful or rework the Recon promotions to enable it to be a stopgap against Muskets?
Atlas627
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I agree that some units are used more often to attack than to defend, regardless of whether you are the aggressor or victim. If you make the change to strategic resources, then most of what I'm suggesting for changes wouldn't work very well, since everyone will have access to the same units (even if some are weaker). However, what I'm suggesting is that 1) players who want to go to war should be incentivized to go get the resources to properly attack, 2) players who just want to defend don't need them as badly if they're willing to risk getting attacked, and 3) players who happen to already have the resources should get a strong enough benefit that their decision might swing in favor of going to war.
A way to do this is to make all the resourced units more powerful, as well as the "attacking" units. I combined them all into one list, but I would consider the Bomber and Siege to be definitely attacking units, and the Helicopter seems mainly good for pillaging everything everywhere so I think it qualifies too. The resourced units would really just be the Tank and Modern Armor I suppose.
I didn't think to count the Medic when trying to determine if things were even with the eras. I'm not sure what to do about the Frigate and Privateers. If someone has been warring all game with boats (unlikely in Civ6), they will upgrade to powerful Frigates. If someone rushes science, they can build Frigates. But if they try to play a somewhat even game, Privateers basically straight-up outclass Frigates and unlock around the same time... so I'm basically used to thinking that Frigates don't exist lol
I meant making Bazookas range 2 so they can actually hit the tanks sometimes, but making the Tanks weaker to air is fine by me. I don't have an opinion on the numbers until I've tested them ingame.
If we're just trying to stick to changes to the actual combat/units/promotions itself, could you make a different set of promotions for Tanks/MA than for earlier Heavy Cavalry? If you want to do things like change the way resources work, maybe you could make some lategame policies that give combat boosts in foreign territory, extra healing in foreign territory, or bonus percent production per Encampment building?
A way to do this is to make all the resourced units more powerful, as well as the "attacking" units. I combined them all into one list, but I would consider the Bomber and Siege to be definitely attacking units, and the Helicopter seems mainly good for pillaging everything everywhere so I think it qualifies too. The resourced units would really just be the Tank and Modern Armor I suppose.
I didn't think to count the Medic when trying to determine if things were even with the eras. I'm not sure what to do about the Frigate and Privateers. If someone has been warring all game with boats (unlikely in Civ6), they will upgrade to powerful Frigates. If someone rushes science, they can build Frigates. But if they try to play a somewhat even game, Privateers basically straight-up outclass Frigates and unlock around the same time... so I'm basically used to thinking that Frigates don't exist lol
I meant making Bazookas range 2 so they can actually hit the tanks sometimes, but making the Tanks weaker to air is fine by me. I don't have an opinion on the numbers until I've tested them ingame.
If we're just trying to stick to changes to the actual combat/units/promotions itself, could you make a different set of promotions for Tanks/MA than for earlier Heavy Cavalry? If you want to do things like change the way resources work, maybe you could make some lategame policies that give combat boosts in foreign territory, extra healing in foreign territory, or bonus percent production per Encampment building?
Atlas627
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I meant if you are willing to do indirectly-associated-to-combat things like changing resources, you could also look at those other options. What you said sounds good for now. Let's see how it plays out; it'll be a long time before people play through enough endgames to form an opinion anyway.
Atlas627
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Sweet. Your table says Knights require Iron AND Horses. How does this work with the resource system? You need 2 of each to construct it, or 1 of each (for 2 total)? You need 1 of each with an encampment, or 1 of either, or 2 of one and 1 of the other? If you have 0 of either, can they not heal, or does it need to be 0 of both?
Atlas627
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Well you've made the Knight require both Iron and Horses, and there is no unit currently in the game that requires 2 resources, so I have no idea how it works with the game's current rules. Or am I misreading the table?
Atlas627
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This sounds pretty good, though there's one big snag I'd like to bring up:
What on earth is Harald Hardrada going to do?! His whole shtick is making non-raider boats able to pillage (its the rest of Norway that gives the other boosts) and being able to construct those boats faster. If you combine the 2 classes, now everyone else has Norway's ability (which really they should, I agree), but then Norway...is *even worse* than it already is.
Also, you'd have to change every single policy that mentions Naval Raider units. Also, are there no carriers in this game? I feel like there should be but I honestly can't remember any right now...
What on earth is Harald Hardrada going to do?! His whole shtick is making non-raider boats able to pillage (its the rest of Norway that gives the other boosts) and being able to construct those boats faster. If you combine the 2 classes, now everyone else has Norway's ability (which really they should, I agree), but then Norway...is *even worse* than it already is.
Also, you'd have to change every single policy that mentions Naval Raider units. Also, are there no carriers in this game? I feel like there should be but I honestly can't remember any right now...
There are carriers in Civ6
Atlas627
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I like the ideas for naval units overall.
I already gave double non-trade pillaging to Norway in my mod. It really isn't unique enough to replace the raiding ability, which is something no other civ can do. Raiding costing less movement is decent, but I'd consider making it go all the way down to 0 cost. Or maybe always let them buy units with faith? How about just ships, Berserkers, and Builders/Settlers/Traders?
I already gave double non-trade pillaging to Norway in my mod. It really isn't unique enough to replace the raiding ability, which is something no other civ can do. Raiding costing less movement is decent, but I'd consider making it go all the way down to 0 cost. Or maybe always let them buy units with faith? How about just ships, Berserkers, and Builders/Settlers/Traders?
captstayhard
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I love the idea of Norway being able to purchase Naval Units with Faith. Would make a religious early start with Norway more rewarding and give some combination mechanics to the Stave Church building. Berserkers being bought with Faith might be a little to much simply because of that combat bonus they have when attacking. Though, I suppose the defense negative they take balances that slightly. Has a lot of potential for a snowball early domination victory if you gear your empire toward religious production though. Regardless, I'd still love to see the naval unit purchasing from faith be a thing.
Atlas627
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To be fair, Berserkers' current weakness is that you *have* to construct them from scratch. Its the same problem many of the unique units have. The Garde Imperiale is basically useless because by the time you construct enough to make a push, the era is over. The Redcoat is decent because you get some for free. By letting you buy the Berserker with Faith, a timing push might become a thing.
Atlas627
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Well you can use both at the same time, it just is not particularly efficient like any other synergy between uniques. Like, why can't you just build AND buy tons of ships?
Well if they now can be upgraded to and other units around it have also been nerfed, maybe. What upgrades into them now?
Sounds fun, though I wonder if the AI can handle performing such a strategy...
Atlas627
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I meant that they probably don't recognize maintenance costs and will probably bankrupt themselves by accident.
I also doubt they'll realize not to waste time attacking land with the Hunters. In the previous version of your mod, slingers have so little strength that they have 0 total strength when attacking cities, and the AI still runs their slingers right up to the city to bombard until they get killed.
I have never seen the AI use Privateers, only barbs.
You can definitely make coastal raiding more lucrative. That's already a Privateer promotion.
I also doubt they'll realize not to waste time attacking land with the Hunters. In the previous version of your mod, slingers have so little strength that they have 0 total strength when attacking cities, and the AI still runs their slingers right up to the city to bombard until they get killed.
I have never seen the AI use Privateers, only barbs.
You can definitely make coastal raiding more lucrative. That's already a Privateer promotion.
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