AlazkanAssassin
Engineer
I've heard some discusions about the current disease/plauge system and the relative merits of diseased corpses.
I think that the disease system needs to be revamped if it is to be a useable stratagy
Here's my idea:
Disease will spread in battle only to units fighting diseased units.
This should include damage from collateral damage.
Imagine a catapult tossing disease ridden projectiles into a city, that would be quite nasty for everyone inside.
But a group of diseased swordsman attacking at the gate would have a less widespread initial effect.
Of course, I don't think that non-living units should get the disease, but it sure sounds like good flavor.
So that the Diseased Corpses unit is a little stronger at this than others are, I would give them a very small amount of collateral damage to a larger number of units. Say, 2% collateral, max 10% damage, hits 4 units per attack.
Every turn that there are diseased units and non-diseased units on the same square there should be a chance of transmittal to each unit there.
The more units, the greater chance of a transmittal. Chances something like, for every unit in the square that is diseased, the unit has a 5% chance of getting diseased this turn. Run the check for disease spread at the end of every turn.
Also, every turn there could be a chance for the unit to recover from the illness. I ran some calculations and you can set the spread rate and heal rates such to produce a very interesting dynamic. If the heal rate if 2-3 times the specific rate of infection, the disease will take over any tile with too many units (~5 or more) but will sputter out in lightly occupied tiles. I think this makes sense, as large armys have had consiterably harder times with diseases in our world then smaller armies do. I think this method would make the disease act more like the dynamic infection that it should be.
If you set the negative heal rate to one that will slowly kill them if they have no heal bonuses then units could die if you spread them out, but the disease will persist among them as long as they are kept all in citys with healing or with your non-cure healer units. Use of a conventional healer would keep them from dieing however, and this sounds good to me.
A strategy would be something like, attack a well defended city with a few diseased units, then wait for the defenders to get the disease from each other. Attack after they are all sofened up.
I'm sure the AI would need at least a little tweaking to use this as well as we can, but it should understand the collateral damage means use the corpses first in attacks.
Comments anyone?
I think that the disease system needs to be revamped if it is to be a useable stratagy
Here's my idea:
Disease will spread in battle only to units fighting diseased units.
This should include damage from collateral damage.
Imagine a catapult tossing disease ridden projectiles into a city, that would be quite nasty for everyone inside.
But a group of diseased swordsman attacking at the gate would have a less widespread initial effect.
Of course, I don't think that non-living units should get the disease, but it sure sounds like good flavor.
So that the Diseased Corpses unit is a little stronger at this than others are, I would give them a very small amount of collateral damage to a larger number of units. Say, 2% collateral, max 10% damage, hits 4 units per attack.
Every turn that there are diseased units and non-diseased units on the same square there should be a chance of transmittal to each unit there.
The more units, the greater chance of a transmittal. Chances something like, for every unit in the square that is diseased, the unit has a 5% chance of getting diseased this turn. Run the check for disease spread at the end of every turn.
Also, every turn there could be a chance for the unit to recover from the illness. I ran some calculations and you can set the spread rate and heal rates such to produce a very interesting dynamic. If the heal rate if 2-3 times the specific rate of infection, the disease will take over any tile with too many units (~5 or more) but will sputter out in lightly occupied tiles. I think this makes sense, as large armys have had consiterably harder times with diseases in our world then smaller armies do. I think this method would make the disease act more like the dynamic infection that it should be.
If you set the negative heal rate to one that will slowly kill them if they have no heal bonuses then units could die if you spread them out, but the disease will persist among them as long as they are kept all in citys with healing or with your non-cure healer units. Use of a conventional healer would keep them from dieing however, and this sounds good to me.
A strategy would be something like, attack a well defended city with a few diseased units, then wait for the defenders to get the disease from each other. Attack after they are all sofened up.
I'm sure the AI would need at least a little tweaking to use this as well as we can, but it should understand the collateral damage means use the corpses first in attacks.
Comments anyone?
