Dune Wars

[vilagura]

Hi Ahriman!

Thank you for the help! With it the modding was a childplay.
The Dune Mod is very cool, I think it is so good that could be an official in-game mod, only the Dune's copyright could be a problem.

As a skilled player (in single) I tried yesterday The Ordos Executorix (so tha boy with lots of pipeline in his head). I think that the Ordos chem troopers gratest problem is not the resource-lock (it would be not realistic to be free). It would be very unlucky if for example a kind of horseman unit would not resource-locked because of game-balancing reason.

You play Ordos, want chem trooper, seize nitrat.

The problem I think is that the chem trooper is too late on the tech-tree, even if you beeline for it, the enemy can easily reach not UU-s, which can handle with the chem trooper (even foot soldiers). I think the solution would be: pushing back it on the tech-tree.

The UU's main role is being very useful, and give advantage before being obsolote.

 

[Tzenchor]

Some discoverys about thopters and suspensor units:
-Thopters can attack everywhere except cities, haven't tried suspensor thoroughly, but i can guarantee that they can't attack cities
-Thopters can be attacked by worms and i suppose also by melee units
-Suspensor units moving through dunes or spice expend one full move point per tile instead of one half like over desert waste or deep desert

 

[Ahriman]

You play Ordos, want chem trooper, seize nitrat.

Its not quite that easy. Nitrate is not a very common resource. Also, it can be difficult to launch invasions without mortars - which also require nitrate.
Perhaps we need to slightly decrease crystal commonality and increase nitrate commonality in mapscripts?

The problem I think is that the chem trooper is too late on the tech-tree

I disagree. Ordos already have an exceptional early game UU; the trike. Fantastic raider, and great en masse because of the withdraw chances.

The chem trooper is a grenade trooper replacement that is even better at dealing with infantry.

If it came any earlier, I think it would be overpowered.

* * *

haven't tried suspensor thoroughly, but i can guarantee that they can't attack cities

I have observed this.

Thopters can be attacked by worms and i suppose also by melee units

This is the intended implementation.
As I understand it, worms can attack thopters, but are much less likely to do so; worms have an AI that will seek out and attack non-thopter units in a 2-tile radius. Thopters they just ignore and move randomly, but will still have a chance of attacking the thopter if they happen to randomly move on top of them. So if you your thopter is adjacent to a worm in the open desert, there is a 1.8 chance the worm will attack it. David, can you confirm if this is true please - I am not certain.

For thopters vs melee; Fremen would have too much trouble with thopters if melee units couldn't attack them. Thopters get a strength bonus vs melee, that is sufficient. IMO.

or spice expend one full move point

I had thought we'd fixed the spice tiles take more movement points issue?

 

[Tzenchor]

This is the intended implementation.
As I understand it, worms can attack thopters, but are much less likely to do so; worms have an AI that will seek out and attack non-thopter units in a 2-tile radius. Thopters they just ignore and move randomly, but will still have a chance of attacking the thopter if they happen to randomly move on top of them. So if you your thopter is adjacent to a worm in the open desert, there is a 1.8 chance the worm will attack it. David, can you confirm if this is true please - I am not certain.

i didn't thought about that, but it would more accurate if they could coexist in the same square (but i know it would be very hard to achieve). Another thing that would be better if you keep that range only for infantry units, and have a larger radius (about 6 or 8 tiles) for ground vehicles and the same or a bit less for suspensor units.

And by the way, why ground vehicles have to relay on transport to cross desert? In every other dune game vehicles have been able to cross desert without more problems than attracting a worm to them.

Oh, and now thinking about it, i feel worms are too slow, infantry shouldn't be able to run away from them

For thopters vs melee; Fremen would have too much trouble with thopters if melee units couldn't attack them. Thopters get a strength bonus vs melee, that is sufficient. IMO.

But fremen can build guardsmen so they shoud be able to defend themshelves from thopters like every other civ. If you make melee units able to destroy aircraft you are overpowering them and making missile troops unnecessary

 

[Ahriman]

i didn't thought about that, but it would more accurate if they could coexist in the same square (but i know it would be very hard to achieve).

More accurate, yes, but IMO it works better gameplaywise if there is still *some* risk from worms. And it could lead to visual clutter and confusion (imaging a stack with thopters and suspensors being ordered to move into a tile with a worm on it; accidental combat occurs).
Besides, a thopter has to land eventually, and the worms are always hungry

and have a larger radius (about 6 or 8 tiles) for ground vehicles and the same or a bit less for suspensor units.

I see what you mean <larger detection radius for vehicles and suspensors> and it makes logical sense, but I worry that the runtime requirements of making every worm check 36-64 tile grids every turn would make this not worth the cost.
[Also: the check is only triggered for units actually on desert tiles, and only suspensors, thopters and fremen melee (and maybe eventually fremen guardsmen) can enter desert tiles. So vehicles will never be there except as cargo, where they wouldn't be attracting anythnig extra.]

And by the way, why ground vehicles have to relay on transport to cross desert? In every other dune game vehicles have been able to cross desert without more problems than attracting a worm to them.

If we did this, vehicles would just be identical to suspensor units. So we would be *losing* design flexibility.

I think the status quo works fine, anything else would be a major reworking.

I think we are a lot closer in Dune *feel* than any of the PC games are, and the aim is mostly to recreate the books, rather than the games.
And of course, there aren't really any ground combat vehiclse in the Dune books, but they're fun, so we add them. Purely melee combat (even ranged weapons are mostly absent from the books, except lasguns and pistols) wouldn't be much fun.

If you want a logical argument; in the pc games, the scale of a fight was always very localized and tactical. Whereas here we're repesenting a large chunk of the planet, with distances in hundreds or thousands of km. Vehicles would need to have supply lines, fuel stores, etc; ground vehicles are not really designed to be able to make protracted campaigns across the extreme deserts of Arrakis.

By the main reason: its more fun this way, and it makes the deserts feel more impassible.
We have: weak-go-anywhere units (suspensors and thopters), limited movement cost efficient units (infantry) and expensive fast land-only units (vehicles).

Oh, and now thinking about it, i feel worms are too slow, infantry shouldn't be able to run away from them

Gameplay issues: having exporing units getting killed by worms that run at them out of fog of war is just no fun. Also, AI weakness. The AI can move its workers away from a threatening barbarian unit; if it couldn't, it would keep getting its workers eaten all the time.

Besidse, the only infantry that can walk on desert are Fremen (who *can* avoid worms) and workers (who arguably have some aircraft with them).

It would also be a bit odd to have worms attracted from the other side of a continent. 6 tiles is probably a very long way.

But fremen can build guardsmen so they shoud be able to defend themshelves from thopters like every other civ. If you make melee units able to destroy aircraft you are overpowering them and making missile troops unnecessary

This has been an element of Civilization games since forever: pikemen could shoot down fighters, heavily fortified musketeers could shoot down a helicoptor, etc. Its an abstraction that *works* in a game that relies on a winner-take-all combat system where the unit that loses is completely destroyed while the unit that survives can heal back to full strength in a few turns at no cost, and where the strongest defender always defends a stack.
Yes, its unrealstic, but its more fun than the alternative.

Missile troops get strength bonuses vs aircraft, aircraft get strength bonuses vs melee units, thats good enough to model melee units being at a disadvantage, and to make guardsmen more effective than melee units when fighting aircraft.

I'd have no problem with slightly tweaking up the thopter bonus vs melee units if you feel its necessary balancewise. Maybe 35%?

If we were being accurate, Dune has no real ground:air combat anyway (or vice versa), since basically everythnig is shielded, so they'd only fight by having the aircraft land ground troops.
And even in the original Dune book, Fremen are able to capture a Sardaukar thopter (and then kamikaze it at a troop carrier).

* * *
Its good to think about and re-evaluate these design decisions, so thanks for mentioning the things that seem strange to you. Its alway useful to get that kind of feedback, particularly aspects of the "first impressions" type, which is where we really want the mod to shine.

That said, I think there are some good gameplay reasons behind the current design, and I'm not sure I see a big enough gain from changing those.

 

[Tzenchor]

I must agree to most of what you said with the current rules. But with a think a rework of the rules on the desert would be better, and by the way, worms can't enter dunes

Changes:
Two square sight radius on deserts.
Movement costs: 1 point per square in desert waste, 2 on deep desert, 2 or 3 on dunes for ground units. Suspensor units 0.5 on any kind of desert and 1 for dunes.
Deep desert and dunes impassable for ground units without stillsuit or deep desert equipment (suspensor units can move through).
Worms can move 2 squares, goes to kill infantry at 2 square or less, at two or four squares suspensor units, at eight ground vehicles. Prevails nearest target or loudest one (that means vehicle prevails over suspensors and them over infantry while at the same range)

I think i don't miss anything

 

[davidlallen]

I guess the fundamental point is whether or not infantry and tanks can move on deep desert at all. If we do not agree, the details of movement points on different terrains do not matter. I think of Dune Wars as similar to an "archipelago" map in vanilla, where normal units can only be carried into battle on naval transports. Changing this would make it a completely different game. If enough people feel that infantry and tanks should be able to cross deep desert, we can consider this change.

Worms can move 2 squares, goes to kill infantry at 2 square or less, at two or four squares suspensor units, at eight ground vehicles.

I am not sure what this means. Do you mean that worms can see 8 plots away, where all other units can only see 2-3 plots away? I am not sure of the reason why worms should have such a long visibility range.

In a previous game I worked on, animals had a fast movement range, and one very big complaint was that animals would be invisible one turn due to fog of war, and the next turn they would kill your workers. This was very painful and I wound up reducing the movement rate of animals. I am afraid the same thing may happen here. Do you think this would be a problem?

 

[Tzenchor]

Whit go to kill two squares... i meaned the ia ruling worms' movements, i thought of that ranges because worms were attracted by vibrations, not by actually viewing their targets and the different ranges are a way to differentiate distinct kind of vibrations.

Also as you said, and ahriman before, animals (or worms in this case) with more than one movement point can come from the fog and eat your workers, but if every unit can see two squares away instead of only one then can react to worms and try to get away, workers or settlers shouldn't have any problem because they are as fast as the worm

 

[Ahriman]

and by the way, worms can't enter dunes

Dunes have no real gameplay impact, because they are only on the distant fringes of the map, with no cities, and no culture, and nothing to fight over and reason to ever go there.
They are really there for graphical impact only.

I guess the fundamental point is whether or not infantry and tanks can move on deep desert at all. If we do not agree, the details of movement points on different terrains do not matter

I agree with your description. And I feel that the current model (where deserts are fairly impassible barriers) works better, both for gameplay and AI handling.

Tzenchor: other than "In the other Dune PC games vehicles and infantry could cross deserts", why do you think we should embark on such a major change?
How do you think this change would improve gameplay?
A realism argument alone does not seem to me to be enough.

 

[Tzenchor]

Dunes have no real gameplay impact, because they are only on the distant fringes of the map, with no cities, and no culture, and nothing to fight over and reason to ever go there.
They are really there for graphical impact only.

I had figgured that, but i tried to attract one worm over a dune with a suspensor unit i had exploring but the worm stopped at fringe of the dune. And by the way, suspensor units needs one full movement point to move through dunes

I agree with your description. And I feel that the current model (where deserts are fairly impassible barriers) works better, both for gameplay and AI handling.

Tzenchor: other than "In the other Dune PC games vehicles and infantry could cross deserts", why do you think we should embark on such a major change?
How do you think this change would improve gameplay?
A realism argument alone does not seem to me to be enough.

I do not have enough experience to tell if that changes will improve gameplay, but they will add more options to move your units without relaying so much on transports.
But i agree, perhaps it is too much work for its benefits

 

[Ahriman]

by the way, suspensor units needs one full movement point to move through dunes

This makes sense to me; suspensor units are basically hovertanks. They're great at racing across flat open terrain, but much slower when it comes to any type of hills or large dunes, I can imagine them having difficulty with steep inclines and highly uneven terrain.

but they will add more options to move your units without relaying so much on transports.

My problem is, it seems to me like it would reduce the number of unit options we have.

At the moment, we have a wide range of unit classes with different strategic purposes and functionality [melee, guardsmen, transport, thopter, suspensor, vehicle, aircraft].
Allowing vehicles and infantry to cross desert tiles freely would basically make transports, suspensors and thopters all unnecessary.
So while an individual quad unit would be able to do more than it did before, there would no longer be any significant need for vulture thopters or suspensor gunships. So we'd really have less "real" variation than before.

* * *

Thanks again for the discussion though; even if we decide not to adopt a particular idea, we still very much appreciate the feedback.

Please keep posting ideas as you continue playing the mod.

 

[Tzenchor]

This makes sense to me; suspensor units are basically hovertanks. They're great at racing across flat open terrain, but much slower when it comes to any type of hills or large dunes, I can imagine them having difficulty with steep inclines and highly uneven terrain.

I agree, but you said in a previous message that dunes didn't have any impact on gameplay, so i thought that was a bug

My problem is, it seems to me like it would reduce the number of unit options we have.

At the moment, we have a wide range of unit classes with different strategic purposes and functionality [melee, guardsmen, transport, thopter, suspensor, vehicle, aircraft].
Allowing vehicles and infantry to cross desert tiles freely would basically make transports, suspensors and thopters all unnecessary.
So while an individual quad unit would be able to do more than it did before, there would no longer be any significant need for vulture thopters or suspensor gunships. So we'd really have less "real" variation than before.

Keep in mind that vehicles and infantry needing some upgrade to travel through deep desert and with it their speed is quite low for medium or long distances they should use transports, but again the IA could be a problem

 

[Ahriman]

but you said in a previous message that dunes didn't have any impact on gameplay, so i thought that was a bug

Well, there is never really any reason why you ever need to move into a Dune tile. So they have no *practical* effect on gameplay.

needing some upgrade to travel through deep desert

I agree that the AI challenges would be severe. [How would the AI evaluate such an upgrade? How would it know when to get it, or when not to get it? How would AI know when to use transports and when to cross desert? What happens if the AI army gets systematically eaten by worms, which it doesn't know how to avoid?]

 

[Tzenchor]

Well, there is never really any reason why you ever need to move into a Dune tile. So they have no *practical* effect on gameplay.

There are some reasons to move to a dune, there the mesas of the desert, high ground that increases sight range, and also with the current rules to escape from worms as they are unable to enter dunes.
An why going so far of rocky areas? just one thing, exploring or even preparing an attack through your enemys' back

 

[Tzenchor]

Hi again, i have found some things a bit weird:
-Lasgun soldier has the ability to ignore city defenses while it's upgrade not, i'm not sure if this is a mistake or it was intended.
-Imperial trooper, house corrino unique unit which replaces the lasgun soldier, is better than its upgrade the lasgun trooper
-Dragonfly bombers can kill units via collateral damage while its upgrade the cielago bomber can't.
-Carryalls are affected by terrains' movement costs.
-Bene Geserits can have one unit of every type of kwisatz
-Sayyadinas concentrates its training ability on one unit of the stack instead of training the whole stack.
-From the strenght era onwards pass too fast, you haven't got time to end building the wonders when the era ends and you no longer can build them.

 

[davidlallen]

Thanks for the feedback! On the first four points, these are definitely unit tuning issues we should address.

On point 5, the Kwisatz units, that is intentional. These units represent actual people being bred, where the later ones are more successful. The earlier units may feel bad, that another exists who is more successful, and perhaps the owning player will suicide them along with secondary SODs. But there is no reason why the earlier unit should cease to exist when the later one arrives.

On point 6, the Sayyadina randomly chooses among the available units to train. Are you sure that you never see the added levels spread among multiple units in the stack? It may be a little hard to be sure it is not a random result.

On point 7, I don't think any of the wonders become obsolete. Can you say more about what you mean?

 

[Ahriman]

I'll echo David, thanks for the feedback.

-Lasgun soldier has the ability to ignore city defenses while it's upgrade not, i'm not sure if this is a mistake or it was intended.

This is not intended, both lasgun units should ignore shields.

Imperial trooper, house corrino unique unit which replaces the lasgun soldier, is better than its upgrade the lasgun trooper

Its replacing the wrong unit then, it should be a trooper upgrade.
We're looknig at changing this high-end stuff anyway.

Dragonfly bombers can kill units via collateral damage while its upgrade the cielago bomber can't.

I tried starting a discussion on which aircraft we think should be able to get complete kills, but it was largely ignored (went in a different direction).

I'm tempted towards saying that no aircraft should be able to get complete kills, to encourage you to use them as support rather than replacements for suspensors and thopters.

Carryalls are affected by terrains' movement costs.

Yeah, I'd noticed this. I suspect this is due to them originally being a copy-paste of the suspensor transport.
Should be fixed.

Bene Geserits can have one unit of every type of kwisatz

Intended, as long as they don't stack.

Sayyadinas concentrates its training ability on one unit of the stack instead of training the whole stack.

My understanding is that Sayyadina mechanics are changing too.
My recommendation was to have them give a separate set of promotions, rather than training in combat and drill. I dislike how Sayyadina training reduces the marginal benefit that units get from combat XP.

From the strenght era onwards pass too fast, you haven't got time to end building the wonders when the era ends and you no longer can build them

Again, not sure what you mean here. I don't think any wonders become obsolete, if you can't build them its probably because the AI has beaten you to them.

 

[Tzenchor]

What i mean is that i couldn't end building some wonders before i had to research any tech leading to an era change or slowing down my research speed.

About the sayyadinas, they tend to focus on one unit, and usually it raises levels very fast, i found sometimes a unit has risen two or three levels in one turn.


Sorry if i am a bit hard to understand, i'm not used to write or speak in english

 

[Ahriman]

What i mean is that i couldn't end building some wonders before i had to research any tech leading to an era change or slowing down my research speed.

I still don't understand what you mean.

Your research should be completely separate from wonder construction, and eras have no impact on wonders. Once you research the tech for a Wonder, the only thing that will stop you from building that wonder is if the AI builds it first.
Can you give an example of what you mean?

Interesting on the Sayyadinnas, that sounds like either a bug or just a very unlikely result.

Your English is mostly fine, its just this one point where I'm not really sure what you mean.

 

[Dionysis]

Haven't played your MOD in a while so thought I would download it again. I must say I am greatly impressed with the work you have done! As others have mentioned, it is worthy of inclusion in a commercial MOD pack!

Thanks for making such a great MOD - it inspired me to re-read the Dune books again!